The Hindu Business Line : `Slew of actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions'

Increasing voluntary effort from companies and Governments through carbon trading, improving energy efficiency and better standards, are likely to be the steps that would be resorted to for reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, said Mr Nicholas Stern, Head of the Government Economics Service, UK, here on Wednesday.

He stressed on the need to take immediate international action to limit the impact of global warming. "All countries, rich and poor, have to share the costs of adaptation and mitigation, though rich countries should share more of the burden," he said at an interactive session on `The economics of climate change', organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Industrialised countries will have to curb emissions while rapidly industrialising economies will have to switch to less carbon intensive technologies.

According to him, "This process will cost one per cent of the GDP. This is an acceptable cost that will allow, both the industrialised and developing countries, to continue to grow. However, not controlling climate change will be anti-growth."

Climate change

Countries also need to realise that climate change is a reality and will be around for some time, he said. They need to evolve policies to mitigate its effects with a carrot-and-stick approach to reduce carbon-intensive development and growth.

For example, carbon pricing via taxes or trading, enforced through regulation, can pay for environmental damage.

It is estimated that in India, a temperature rise of 2-3.5 °C will lead to a loss of 20 per cent in revenue from agriculture, according to research by Ms J Roy, Head, Economics, Jadhavpur University. This will reduce GDP growth by 0.67 per cent. A 100-cm rise in sea levels will shave 3-6 per cent off the country's GDP.