Can the Stern Review prove successful as an environmentalist marketing tool?
By Peter Szuppinger and Wojciech Kosc
The job of an insurance agent is to convince a potential client that a policy for sale is vitally important; that the product is, in fact, necessary for guaranteed safety and security. When told in sombre tones to "think about your future...and your family's future" the words tend to sink in.
With the Stern Review concluding in 2006 that "scientific evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat, and it demands an urgent global response," a solid policy seems to have been finally made available to the worldwide public. While world leaders are still trying to convince one another of the necessity for a new round of stricter climate policies, the costs and benefits of climate action remain unclear where the economies of Central and Eastern Europe are concerned.
In June, leaders of the world's eight leading industrialised nations agreed that "strong and early action" from all major emitters (within a UN framework) is needed to prevent dangerous climate change. Global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising, followed by "substantial" reductions, says the final communique from the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany. Major emitters agreed on a "detailed contribution" for a new global framework by the end of 2008, which would feed into a global agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change by 2009.
The G8 made no commitment, however, to any of the EU's original goals: i.e. to limit temperature rises to two degrees, to halve emissions by 2050, or to move towards a global emission trading system. A pledge from US President George W. Bush that his country will be actively involved, even play a leading role, in a post-Kyoto framework made everyone who cares about climate sigh with relief.