As soon as you enter a debate on the topic of global warming, your interlocutor will sooner or later accuse you of proposing policy actions that could have devastating consequences, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable. It’s time, I think, to address this criticism head on with a modicum of vigor. In this, there’s no better starting point than the UK-treasury mandated Stern Review, tasked with considering the costs and benefits of policy actions geared toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The bottom line of the report is pellucid. By not acting, the costs of climate change will eat up 5 percent of global GDP each year, which could rise to 20 percent, taking into account a wider range of risks. In contrast, the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would amount to 1 percent of global GDP a year. The major economic costs go far beyond the inconvenience to the American lifestyle of high gas prices, as “hundreds of millions of people could suffer hunger, water shortages, and coastal flooding”. The most vulnerable, the poorest countries, will suffer “earliest and most”, even though they are least responsible for global warming. Moreover, the next 10-20 years will prove absolutely crucial, rendering little time for complacency. And remember, the latest evidence from climatologists in Science is that climate models may actually be understating the rate of global warming, and that the assumptions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are actually too conservative. Clearly, the benefits of decisive early action outweigh the costs.
Now, these results are not uncontroversial. In particular, the discounting assumptions have been heavily criticized in some quarters. It is customary in these exercises to discount the future simply because it is the future– attaching less weight to the welfare of tomorrow than today (this is known as the rate of pure time preference). Stern rejects this methodology on ethical grounds. Hence his estimates of the damage caused by global warming are larger, simply because his discount rate is so much smaller.
Clearly, should these scenarios come to fruition, this could be one of the most pressing moral issues of the day. There is certainly much to like in analysis of the Stern Review from a Catholic perspective. For a start, the discounting assumptions are surely worthy of support, given that they do not fall into the utilitarian trap of assuming our lives are worth more than the lives of those not yet born. And indeed, Holy See observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, echoed the Stern Review when he noted that global warming will impose a disproportionate burden on “the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk.” He called for a shift from the “heedless pursuit of economic growth” toward an approach more respectful of Creation.
And yet many on the American right continue to stand stubbornly against all proposals to combat global warming. The reasons are manifold, ranging from bad evangelical theology– the right to dominate the earth, the idea that God wants Americans to be wealthy, the immanence of the end times, an anti-intellectual streak– to crasser materialism, and a tendency to heavily discount the future (just look at the low savings rates!). No, there is no certainty that the scenarios painted by the Stern review will materialize, but do we need certainly before being willing to make some modest sacrifices?
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