The United Nations climate summit on Sept. 23 will “help lay the framework for putting a price on carbon,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday.
Ban said the meeting of more than 120 heads of states in New York will also “promote innovative financing mechanisms” to move beyond investments in fossil fuels, and that it would seek to make the “case for removing policy ambiguity” in hopes of pushing nations toward cleaner energy sources.
The comments came during an event for a rollout of a new report by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate that said taking action on climate change need not sacrifice economic growth.
“We can not eradicate extreme poverty without fighting climate change. We need to advance two agendas simultaneously,” Ban said.
The climate summit is seen as a momentum builder for next year’s international negotiations in Paris. Countries there will seek to secure commitments to reduce enough carbon emissions by 2020 to avoid a 2 degree Celsius global temperature rise by 2100.
Conservatives and industry in the United States have fought against pricing carbon, saying it would handicap U.S. economic competitiveness if other nations don’t follow suit. But advocates say doing so would properly value climate- and health-related damages from burning fossil fuels that a scientific consensus says warms the planet.
Ban said the summit would deliver on several recommendations made in the report released Tuesday, which rejected claims that curbing carbon would endanger economic growth.
The report noted world infrastructure spending would hit $90 trillion over the next 15 years. Those dollars should go toward low-carbon energy sources and bridges, roads and agriculture that are more able to withstand rising sea levels, drought and other extreme weather linked to a warming planet, the report said.
Some of the measures the report called for are politically challenging. Phasing out the $600 billion of fossil fuel subsidies on the books across the world would no doubt be one of the bigger lifts for policymakers.
But it offered some suggestions for lower-hanging fruit as well.
Restoring 12 percent of degraded lands, for example, could provide food for an additional 200 million people and boost farmers’ income $40 billion annually while lowering emissions caused by deforestation.
The report also predicted over half of new energy capacity through the next 15 years would come from renewable sources, largely because of falling wind and solar technology prices. Tripling research and development spending in such technologies to 0.1 percent of global gross domestic product could unleash a new wave of innovation, it said.
“The next 10–15 years could be an era of great progress and growth. In this period we have the technological, financial and human resources to raise living standards across the world. Good policies that support investment and innovation can further reduce poverty and hunger, make fast-growing cities economically vibrant and socially inclusive, and restore and protect the world’s natural environments,” the report said.
