How technological advances underpin hope for climate change adaptation
Lord Hunt says there is a growing consensus that tech advances can help maintain standards of living for richer nations while allowing the poorer ones to continue developing
Governments need to seize the opportunity in Paris to frame their agreements for the long term, based on evidence of the growing effectiveness of low-carbon policies
With all countries involved in setting a framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, parliamentarians, industry leaders and academics met last month in advance of the summit. These talks explored a range of practical but potentially transformational strategies that will enable governments to agree on fair targets for different regions and types of country.
However, last month's meeting expressed a broad emerging consensus that technological transformation could enable standards of living in the industrialised world to be maintained, while also reducing carbon emissions enough so that developing countries can grow their economies and therefore their emissions up to global per capita levels.
Most countries are equally concerned that environmental policies must also deal with the impact of increasingly severe natural hazards caused by global environmental changes, and special regional effects such as burning forests, the melting of polar ice, desertification and the spread of diseases. As the UN goals of long-term sustainability have emphasised, societies need to become significantly more resilient. This adaptation requires many aspects to be replanned for the future.
This growing confidence about the potential for future technological and green energy transformations in the developed world is underpinned by several factors. Firstly, there is greater belief that, in some countries, reliable and economic technology will provide sufficient capacity for non-fossil energy, especially wind, solar and hydro, for electricity and even transport.