Macroscope | US-China competition is not what the battle against climate change needs
- Set against the estimated multi-trillion-dollar cost of dealing with global warming, Washington’s US$430 billion in a recently passed bill is hardly overwhelming
- Furthermore, the prospects for global climate action do not look bright when the world’s top two carbon emitters, the US and China, can’t cooperate
The US$430 billion price tag on the legislation – of which US$370 billion is for fiscal outlays on climate change over the next 10 years – is hardly inconsequential. But set against the estimated multi-trillion-dollar cost of dealing with global warming, neither is it overwhelming.
It is hoped, by experts such as Dan Lashof, US director of the World Resources Institute, that the American initiative will induce China, currently the biggest global emitter of greenhouse gases, and others to increase their targeted spending on climate change.
Some of these other nations, not least India, do need to do more in this regard because, as Bruno Carraso, director general for sustainable development and climate change at the Asian Development Bank, noted during a panel discussion I moderated at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo recently, the Asia-Pacific region produces more than half of global carbon dioxide emissions.
As Carrasco put it, the battle against climate change “will be won or lost” in the Asia-Pacific region.
But before anyone can be sure how much more Asia – or indeed the US, the European Union and other regions – needs to contribute, we need to get a better handle on what the global cost of climate change mitigation and adaptation will really be. At present, this is almost anyone’s guess.