In order to control climate change, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that greenhouse gas emissions will need to fall by about forty percent by 2030. Achieving the target ...goals will be highly challenging. Yet inGreening the Global Economy, economist Robert Pollin shows that they are attainable through steady, large-scale investments -- totaling about 1.5 percent of global GDP on an annual basis -- in both energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources. Not only that: Pollin argues that with the right investments, these efforts will expand employment and drive economic growth.Drawing on years of research, Pollin explores all aspects of the problem: how much energy will be needed in a range of industrialized and developing economies; what efficiency targets should be; and what kinds of industrial policy will maximize investment and support private and public partnerships in green growth so that a clean energy transformation can unfold without broad subsidies. All too frequently, inaction on climate change is blamed on its potential harm to the economy. Pollin shows greening the economy is not only possible but necessary: global economic growth depends on it.
Climate change necessarily presents a profound political challenge in the present historical era, for the simple reason that we are courting ecological disaster by not advancing a viable global ...climate-stabilization project. There are no certainties about what will transpire if we allow the average global temperature to continue rising. But as a basis for action, we only need to understand that there is a non-trivial possibility that the continuation of life on earth as we know it is at stake. Climate change therefore poses perhaps the ultimate ‘what is to be done’ question. There is no shortage of proposals for action, including, of course, the plan to do nothing at all advanced by Trump and his acolytes. In recent numbers of NLR, Herman Daly and Benjamin Kunkel have discussed a programme for a sustainable ‘steady-state’ economy, and Troy Vettese has proposed re-wilding as a means for natural geo-engineering.
This paper summarizes a global Green New Deal program that can advance climate stabilization as well as rising mass living standards and an expansion of decent job opportunities. The core features of ...this program are massive global investments in energy efficiency and clean renewable energy so that clean energy supplants the existing fossil-fuel-dominant global energy system. Through annual investments in the range of 2 percent of global GDP in clean energy and a corresponding contraction in fossil fuel consumption, the global economy can maintain an absolute decoupling trajectory—i.e., economic growth proceeds while CO2 emissions fall to zero within 30–40 years. The paper also shows that a steady contraction of global GDP—i.e., “degrowth”—does not provide a viable climate stabilization framework.
JEL Classification: Q54, Q56, Q58
This paper focuses on transition policies targeted at supporting workers now employed in the fossil fuel industries and ancillary sectors within high-income economies. As a general normative ...principle, I argue that the overarching aim of such policies should be to protect workers against major losses in their living standards resulting through the fossil fuel industry phase-out. The impacted workers should be provided with guarantees to accomplish this, in the areas of jobs, compensation and pensions. Just transition policies should also include job search, retraining and relocation programs, but these forms of support should be recognized as supplementary. The overall set of just transition policies is fully aligned with the Energy Justice and Capabilities Approach as well as the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Within this framework, the paper first reviews experiences with transitional policies in Germany, the UK, the EU and, more briefly, Japan and Canada. The policies either implemented or discussed in these cases do not provide the needed guarantees. The paper then presents an illustrative robust just transition program for the heavily fossil fuel-dependent U.S. state of West Virginia. This program will cost, as an annual average, about $42,000 per impacted worker, or about 0.2 percent of West Virginia's current GDP. I briefly summarize results for seven other U.S. states and for the overall U.S. economy. For the U.S. economy overall, the just transition program's costs would total to about 0.015 percent of GDP. These findings demonstrate the financial viability of robust just transition programs for high-income economies.
In December 2010, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Price Index surpassed its previous peak of June 2008, and prices remained at this level through September 2011. This ...pattern is creating justified fears of a renewal or intensification of the global food crisis. This paper reviews arguments and evidence to inform debates on how to regulate commodity futures markets in the face of such price volatility and sustained high prices. We focus on the relationship between market liquidity and price patterns in asset markets in general and in commodities futures markets in particular, as well as the relationship between spot and futures market prices for food. We find strong evidence supporting the need to limit huge increases in trading volume on futures markets through regulations. We find that arguments opposing regulation are not supported. We find no support for the claim that liquidity in futures markets stabilizes prices at "fundamental" values or that spot market prices are free of any significant influence from futures markets. Given these results, the most appropriate position for regulators is precautionary: they should enact and enforce policies capable of effectively dampening excessive speculative trading on the commodities markets for food.
This paper presents an industrial policy approach for advancing a global climate stabilization project. The centerpieces of the project are 1) dramatically improving energy efficiency standards in ...the stock of buildings, automobiles and public transportation systems, and industrial production processes; and 2) equally dramatically expanding the supply of clean renewable energy sources - primarily solar and wind power - available at competitive prices. Global investment spending in these areas will need to average about 2.5% of global GDP over 2024-2050 to achieve a net zero CO
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emissions global economy by 2050. The paper works within a policy approach similar to that advanced by Malcolm Sawyer that integrated industrial and macroeconomic policies targeted at achieving full employment.
We develop a Just Transition framework for U.S. workers and communities that are currently dependent on domestic fossil fuel production. Our rough high-end estimate for such a program is a relatively ...modest $600 million per year. This level of funding would pay for (1) income, retraining, and relocation support for workers facing retrenchments; (2) guaranteeing the pensions for workers in the affected industries; and (3) mounting effective transition programs for what are now fossil fuel–dependent communities.
Climate change is destroying the global commons to an extent unprecedented in human history. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has established clear targets for stabilizing the ...global mean temperature at no more than 1.5°C above preindus-trial levels: cutting global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 percent as of 2030 and achieving a net zero emissions global economy by 2050. This paper argues that a global green new deal can achieve the IPCC’s targets while also expanding decent job opportunities and raising mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
CEKLJ, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper advances a broad program to move the global economy onto a viable climate stabilization path-a trajectory that is consistent with the CO
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emissions reduction targets established by the ...Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The overarching project is straightforward: to achieve the IPCC emissions reduction targets, and to accomplish this in a way that also expands decent job opportunities and raises mass living standards for working people and the poor throughout the world. This overarching aim is captured within the idea of a Global Green New Deal. As I use the term, the Global Green New Deal, includes four major features: phasing out global fossil fuel consumption by 2050; clean energy investments, averaging about 2.5 percent of global GDP per year, including both public and private investments; just transition support for workers and communities that are currently dependent on the fossil fuel industry; and phasing out deforestation and industrial agriculture, to be replaced with afforestation and sustainable agricultural practices. This paper focuses on the first three issues, related to the operations of the global energy system. The main topics covered are: Fossil Fuel Phase-out; Clean Energy Investment Program; Job Creation, Job Losses and Just Transition; Providing Cheap and Accessible Financing; and Ensuring Global Fairness.
