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www.fbbva.es For Nicholas Stern, BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge laureate, the fight against climate change is “an industrial revolution” that will help us emerge from the current crisis This economist and author of the pioneering Stern Review, a watershed study on the economics of climate change, locates climate change alongside poverty as the two great challenges of our century Stern contends that climate change is hitting harder and earlier than was first thought, but “the good news is that the technology is increasingly available to switch over to a low-carbon economy” The presentation ceremony of the 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards will take place on Wednesday, June 15 in the Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation. June 13, 2011.- “The crisis will mean ten years of slow growth in Europe, but one of the drivers of recovery will be the switch to a low-emissions economy. We should not see the fight against climate change as a sacrifice, but rather as an opportunity.” These words were pronounced this morning by Lord Nicholas Stern, distinguished with the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change for heading the first study to quantify the impacts and costs deriving from the alteration of our planet’s climate. Stern is confident that the technological applications that can bring down emissions “are already coming through; in agriculture, in transport and as part of the broader quest for improved energy efficiency,” and maintains that such technology will spearhead a “new energy and industrial revolution.” This is the positive side of what he still sees as a deeply worrying scenario: “If you are asking me are we acting fast enough against climate change, then the answer is no,” he affirms. The pioneering Stern Review, commissioned by the British Government and published in 2006, concluded that “the costs of inaction are far higher than those of acting against climate change.” Today its author assures that the impact of climate change is proving “faster and harder” than anyone thought, so the costs of managing it are also rising. Billions of people forced to uproot Stern is adamant about the link between climate change and global development. The “two great challenges of our century” are “poverty and climate change”, he contends, and the two are intricately linked: “If we fail on one, we fail on the other.” The result of such failure would be “a physical environment so hostile that possibly billions of people would have to uproot.” A movement on this scale, unprecedented in the whole of human history, would lead to “severe, prolonged and global conflict.” In economic terms, we would be looking at “a reversal of development.” In Stern’s view, what we have to do is “break the link between emissions, on one hand, and production and consumption on the other,” and embark on the transition to a “cleaner, safer” low-emissions economy. “The good news is that we can not only see how to begin and pursue that process, but also we can see that it will be creative, innovative and a driver of a very different type of growth,” says Stern. “Science has guided us on the risks and necessary scale of action. We can see technologies emerging. We understand the essence of the key economic policies. The challenge now is creating the political will.” It will take good-quality market regulations, Stern opines, to unleash the power of this new economy – measures able to correct “the greatest market failure the world has seen,” whose cause is the absence of a price for carbon. Nuclear power is not the key Stern also talked about the role of nuclear power in the new energy scenario. The nuclear scare in Japan may slow the growth of this kind of energy, but this, Stern reminds us, is only part of the wider story. “Nuclear power stations will continue to be built, though possibly at a slower rate, but in general terms expansion is being tilted to renewables and gas.” What this will mean, he explains, is that “we have to press on with developing technologies for carbon capture and storage,” since gas is notwithstanding an energy source that adds carbon to the atmosphere. 2 The Frontiers of Knowledge laureate in Climate Change is adamant that the rich countries cannot ignore the plight of less well-off nations or take measures that imply “an obstacle in the way of rising standards of living for the poor people of this world”. Poor countries, Stern emphasizes, “are hit earliest and hardest by climate change,” and our duty is to help them adapt to these changed conditions. “The rich countries must accept their responsibilities for the past and for the future.” Stern believes Europe has an important part to play in the developed world as a promoter of economic and technological change, but also draws attention to the example of China, which has launched “a radical plan of emissions targets.” Nicholas Stern (Hammersmith, United Kingdom, 1946) is I.G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics (LSE). He has served as Chief Economist with the World Bank, Head of the Government Economic Service in the United Kingdom, and Chief Economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He has been knighted for his services to the UK economy and awarded a life peerage. He currently heads the India Observatory within the Asia Research Centre and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. As a development economist, he has spent long periods researching in some of India's most disadvantaged regions, as well as various parts of Africa. AWARD PRESENTATION CEREMONY The presentation ceremony of the 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards will take place on Wednesday, June 15 at 19:00 in the Madrid headquarters of the BBVA Foundation. For further information, contact the BBVA Foundation Communication Department (tel.: +34 91 374 52 10 / [email protected]), or visit the website www.fbbva.es 3