The Co-Chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Report on Mitigating Climate Change, has said Minister for Finance Michael Noonan should focus on raising carbon taxes in next week’s Budget, and use the monies raised to reduce taxes elsewhere in the economy.
Professor Ottmar Edenhofer said that if the world is to achieve any meaningful target for limiting climate then it cannot be a case of business as usual.
Mr Edenhoffer is in Dublin to deliver a major public lecture on what needs to be done to mitigate climate change this evening at the Mansion House in Dublin.
The bad news he says is that despite worldwide efforts to contain greenhouse gases, and despite the impact of the global economic collapse since 2008, global emissions continue to rise and rise.
The reason is that coal has become very cheap in places like China, India and the United States, and as a result there is a major global resurgence in coal use worldwide.
He says we cannot go on like this if we hope to limit the rise in global temperature.
The growth in emissions has to be brought to a halt in the next decade and the carbon in the atmosphere has to be rapidly immediately after that.
The good news he said is that it can be done without sacrificing economic growth.
It should not cost the world to save the planet, he said.
However, it will require major investments in a broad portfolio of technologies including nuclear energy, renewable energy, and carbon capture.
However, it will also require an effective carbon pricing scheme, which he warned would prove difficult for politicians to implement.
The biggest problem the world faces is not that we are running out of fossil fuels, rather it is the limiting disposal space of the atmosphere which matters most in the 21st century.
However, this scarcity of atmosphere is not reflected anywhere in the pricing systems.
He said we need a carbon price that investors and industry can understand.
Mr Edenhofer said he would advise Minister Noonan to focus on increasing carbon taxes in next week's Budget, and use the monies raised to reduce taxes elsewhere in the economy and to improve public infrastructure.
