23 April 2001: Instead of worrying that a world economic slowdown will make it too expensive to curb the emissions that are changing the climate, governments should go green for growth, a top international expert says.
Tomihiro Taniguchi, vice chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says the challenges of cutting carbon emissions should be viewed as an opportunity to develop new technologies - especially in motoring - and make a profit in the process.
"Convincing governments to act is very difficult because the major concern today still is economic, the slowdown of the economy," Taniguchi says.
There is still a wrong perception or wrong conviction that the environmental issues including climate change can be a minus, or harmful to economic development or the recovery.
"But the main message is that this is not necessarily the case. We can have a lot of net benefit, no regret options. That message is very difficult to convey."
The IPCC has just issued three reports outlining its latest findings on global warming.
Bringing together the research of around 2,000 scientists, it says average world temperatures rose faster in the 1990s than in any other decade in the past 1,000 years, and finds clear evidence that this is the fault of man and industry.
It says the earth's average surface temperature will rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, and sea levels will rise between nine and 88 cm (3.5 and 34.6 inches).
The consequences could include massive flooding, extended droughts and the extinction of countless species. Agricultural productivity is likely to slump, disease is set to spread and many areas will be plunged into social chaos.
The panel says many of the clean fuel technologies needed to halt carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have already been developed ... and that using green energy resources could actually bring economic benefits, not just costs.
Taniguchi says the issue is no longer whether the Kyoto protocol should be ratified. The scenarios painted by IPCC scientists showed CO2 emissions had be cut far more drastically.
"The Kyoto cuts are okay for the year 2010, 2020, but not enough to cover the need in 100 years for a reduction by 50 percent or 80 percent," he says. "It's not the six or seven or eight percent we are discussing for Kyoto. It's 10 times more."
Taniguchi, a professor at the University of Tokyo, believes it is hard to determine exactly when it would become too late to halt rapid climate change.
"We have time, but the earlier the better," he believes.
CFC
