How to deal with the heat?
Sunday, March 29th, 2009“[…] Stern’s assumption that our consumption can continue to grow while our emissions fall is implausible. To have any hope of making substantial cuts we have both to reduce our consumption and transfer resources to countries like China to pay for the switch to low-carbon technologies.”
- The Guardian Weekly, p. 20 , 27.03.2009
I think this raises the question of why China don’t have incentives to lower emissions on their own - don’t the Chinese central planner enjoy breathing unpolluted air? Is it because the technology is unavailable in China (or in other developing countries) so that the cost of reducing CO2 emissions are higher there? Or is it the (indefinitely lived) leaders time preference for consumption that is off?