G20 Foundation Publications Turkey 2015 | Page 105
CLIMATE CHANGE & SUSTAINABILITY 105
successful businesses already know how to anticipate and adapt to
changing markets. Entire countries can do the same if the political will and
private capability join forces. For example, when Japan decided become
less reliant on nuclear power following the 2011 earthquake, it took just
three years for them to be able to replace half of that electricity through
efficiency gains and to launch the first offshore floating wind turbine in
Asia.
The difference between success and failure is still just 2%. But having
spent years talking about the tipping point towards the tragedy of global
warming being just 2%, this is our chance to talk about the tipping point
towards the successful delivery of practical, sustainable solutions being
just 2% of the GDP of the wealthiest nations.
To put that in context and to reinforce the point that this about wise
spending, not more spending, the International Energy Agency has shown
that the uptake of more economically viable energy efficiency investments
could boost cumulative economic output by $18 trillion in the next 20
years. That is more than the combined economic output of the US,
Canada and Mexico and certainly more than enough to help finance a
transitioning green economy.
In the meantime, we need to adapt to the consequences, which will cost
between $150-500 billion per year until 2050, and we need to look at
the equitable sharing of that cost. Today Bangladesh self-finances three
quarters of the $1 billion annual costs from climate adaptation, even
though the average person in Bangladesh emits less carbon in a year than
a European emits in 11 days.
Finding and effectively investing $150-500 billion a year is a massive
undertaking, but sometimes the cost of inaction is much greater. Had we
failed to take equally drastic action to tackle the hole in the ozone layer
the size of North America, more than two million people a year would
suffer from skin cancer and many more from cataracts, not to mention the
impact on agriculture or biodiversity.
The G20 leaders are in the best position of a generation to take ambitious
decisions that will address all of this by opening the door to a new action
plan in Paris through a shift towards an inclusive, sustainable green
economy and the allocation of adaptation funding. This can’t be a choice
of one over the other; we need both to underpin the credibility of any
agreement on climate change. Q