Exclusive: Lord Stern warns talks will hinge on equality as poorer countries cannot be left to bear the brunt of costs
Lord Stern, the world’s most authoritative climate economist, is calling on rich countries to do everything they can to help poorer nations weather the storm of global warming – warning that a failure would escalate poverty, migration and conflict.
In an interview with The Independent ahead of the United Nations climate change summit in Paris, Lord Stern said the conference represented a crucial opportunity to reduce the huge inequality at the heart of global warming.
The huge resentment among poor countries over how they are suffering could potentially scupper a global agreement to tackle it, he explained.
“Equality is a big issue. The rich got rich on high-carbon growth and it’s the poor people of the world – whether they be poor people in rich countries or poor people in poor countries – who suffer earliest and most,” Lord Stein said.
The entrance of the COP21 Climate Conference venue in Le Bourget. Talks will take place from 30 November to 11 December (EPA)
The negotiations in Paris will largely concentrate on how much money the rich nations pay to the poorer ones to help them adapt to the effects of global warming – such as increased hurricanes and droughts – and to help finance the transition from fossil fuels to green energy.
The issue is fraught as developed nations with financial problems of their own baulk at channelling hundreds of billions of pounds into developing countries – which, in turn, worry that the amounts involved, though huge, are not nearly enough.
Lord Stern was speaking as new research underlined how extraordinarily expensive global warming will be for developing countries – and how much less it would cost if the world redoubled its efforts to curb it. The report, commissioned by Oxfam, found that global warming is on course to cost developing countries $2.5 trillion dollars (£1.65 trillion) a year by 2050.
The costs relate to the huge price of adapting infrastructure to deal with a warming planet and the losses this will inflict on developing economies, for anything from extreme weather damage to disease and lost agricultural production.
The report, carried out by research group Climate Analytics, factors in recent pledges made by more than 160 countries regarding 2030 targets to reduce carbon emissions – which experts estimate will limit global warming to be-tween 2.7C and 3C. But the UN has set a target of 2C because anything beyond that becomes increasingly devastating.
Climate change around the world - in pictures
Coastal systems and low-lying areas
Flood damaged streets in Queens, New York where the historic boardwalk was washed away due to Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The report predicts that by the end of the century “hundreds of millions of people will be affected by coastal flooding and displaced due to land loss” Food security
Widespread drought devastated a corn crop on a farm near Bruceville, Indiana in 2012. The report forecasts that climate change will reduce median yields by up to 2 per cent per decade for the rest of the centuryThe global economy
The Evening Standard headline board showing the words 'Black Friday Shares Crash' in London in October 2008 in London. The report warns a global mean temperature increase of 2.5C above pre-industrial levels may lead to global aggregate economic losses of between 0.2 and 2.0 per centHuman health
A child suffering from malnutrition and diarrhoea is seen at the Banadir hospital in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu in 2009. Climate change will lead to increases in ill-health in many regions, with examples including an increased likelihood of under-nutrition.Human security
A Muslim migrant holds his son as they are detained at the Immigration Police Office on the Thai-Malaysian border in March 2014. The report states that climate change over the 21st century will have a significant impact on forms of migration that compromise human securityFreshwater resources
A villager walks through a parched paddy in Tianlin county, China in 2012. The report finds that climate change will “reduce renewable surface water and groundwater resources significantly in most dry subtropical regions"Unique landscapes
Machair, a grassy coastal habitat found only in north-west Scotland and the west coast of Ireland, is one of the several elements of the UK’s “cultural heritage” that is at risk from climate changeGreenland
Calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers are seen floating on the water in Qaqortoq, Greenland Greenland
A boat navigates among calved icebergs from the nearby Twin Glaciers in Qaqortoq, Greenland. Boats are a crucial mode of transportation in the country that has few roads. As cities like Miami, New York and other vulnerable spots around the world strategize about how to respond to climate change, many Greenlanders simply do what theyve always done: adapt. 'Were used to change, said Greenlander Pilu Neilsen. 'We learn to adapt to whatever comes. If all the glaciers melt, well just get more land Norway
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is seen after being inaugurated in Longyearbyen, Norway. The 'doomsday' seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters opened deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard France
A technician preparing to drain a vast underground lake at the Tete Rousse glacier on the Mont Blanc Alpine mountain, to avert a potentially disatrous flood. Some 65,000 cubic metres (2.3 million cubic feet) of water have gathered in a cavity, dangerously raising the pressure beneath the mountain, a favourite spot for holiday makers in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains Iran
Oroumieh, one of the biggest saltwater lakes on Earth, has shrunk more than 80 percent to 1,000 square kilometers in the past decade. It shrinks mainly because of climate change, expanded irrigation for surrounding farms and the damming of rivers that feed the body of waterSwitzerland
Cracked mud is picture at sunrise in the dried shores of Lake Gruyere affected by continous drought near the western Switzerland village of Avry-devant-Pont. A leading climate scientist warned that Europe should take action over increasing drought and floods, stressing that some climate change trends were clear despite variations in predictions USA
Cattle graze on grassland that remains dry and brown at the height of the rainy season in south of Bakersfield, California. Its third straight year of unprecedented drought, California is experiencing its driest year on record, dating back 119 years, and dating back as far as 500 years, according to some scientists who study tree rings Pakistan
An aerial view shows tents of flood-displaced people surrounded by water in southern Sehwan town. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Christiana Figueres met with people displaced by last year's devastating floods. Catastrophic monsoon rains that swept through the country in 2010 and affected some 20 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of arable land Australia
An aerial view of flooding in North Wagga Wagga. Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storm and rising seas, threatening all countries but small island states, poor nations and arid regions in particular, UN experts warned Honduras
Damages caused by a landslide on the Pan-American highway near La Moramulca, 55 Km south of Tegucigalpa. International highways have been washed out, villages isolated and thousands of families have lost homes and crops in a region that the United Nations has classified as one of the most affected by climate change The Oxfam report finds that the cost to the developing world of dealing with 2C warming is huge. The extra 1C increases their cost of adaptation by about $270bn a year by 2050 and deals a further $600bn of annual economic losses.
“We are seeing encouraging progress towards a climate deal but settling for what we have so far would spell disaster for the world’s poorest people,” said Oxfam GB’s chief executive, Mark Goldring. “One degree’s difference might seem negligible but it’s a multi-billion dollar nightmare for the world’s poorest countries.”
World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim said parts of Africa were among those areas most in need of financial help. “Sub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate shocks that could have far-ranging impact on everything from child stunting and malaria to food price increases,” he said.
Children are disproportionately at risk from global warming, with more than half a billion living in areas of high flood risk and 160 million in drought-prone regions, according to Unicef, the children’s charity. “The sheer numbers underline the urgency of acting now,” said Unicef executive director Anthony Lake.
Lord Stern urged world leaders to tackle these global warming inequalities at the UN conference, which begins on November 30.
“[Paris] is in large measure about showing the rich world is serious about its promises. It is important. It’s got to show that it’s on the way [to providing $100bn of finance a year by 2020] and that it is likely to continue to be on the way,” Lord Stern said.
“The defining challenges of this century are overcoming poverty and managing climate change: if we fail on one we fail on the other. Clearly if we fail to manage climate change we create an environment so hostile that development will be undermined – leading to hundreds of millions having to move because their environment has been devastated.
“It’s very important to see the ravages of climate change as likely to move people on a very big scale. Unmanaged climate change is likely to produce strong movement of people and great conflict, the reasons for which could not easily be switched off,” Lord Stern said.