Editorial

Citation

Leal Filho, W. (2009), "Editorial", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 1 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijccsm.2009.41401aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Volume 1, Issue 1

Welcome to the first issue of IJCCSM. Readers will find in this journal papers handling a wide range of themes related to climate change and its management, worldwide.

On this Editorial, I would like to discuss a recent study produced by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), which has identified the fact that the EUs fair share of the global bill for tackling climate change is €60bn annually, according to a new analysis by Brussels-based think-tank the CEPS. The figure covers mitigation and adaptation efforts in both the public and private sectors, and encompasses domestic EU spending and money spent on action abroad.

The study’s authors looked at six recent calculations of the global costs of climate change action, including the Stern report and Swedish firm Vattenfall’s “climate map”, which used figures from consultants McKinsey. This yielded a range of global costs from €230 to €614bn annually, based on 2006 figures.

To calculate the EU’s share they applied four different methods: two based on the polluter-pays principle, which takes into account current emissions, and two that take into account historical emissions and current economic ability to contribute to costs. From this, under most realist scenario, the most equitable EU contribution to the global climate change effort comes to €60bn, but under high-cost scenarios would reach up to €194bn. The €60bn figure coincides roughly with the price tag put on the full implementation of the EU’s climate and energy package, as proposed by the European commission in January 2008. The Commission said its package would cost around 0.5 per cent of the EU’s GDP per year.

CEPS said a political decision should be taken on how much of this cost should be borne through the EU budget. The budget is “not well designed to efficiently address” climate change, except for contributions to research and development, it says. Most climate policy costs are paid through national budgets and by firms. CEPS says that much more weight should be put on compliance with energy efficiency in the distribution of EU funds to poorer “cohesion” countries, and that there could be a separate budget line for climate policy action.

The analysis also urges the pooling of national revenues from future carbon allowance auctions to pay for EU climate initiatives. There will be no doubt many interesting projects being generated by this scheme and this journal will be reporting on future developments as and then they occur.

Enjoy your reading!

Walter Leal Filho