Page 5 - AsiaElec Week 50 2022

AsiaElec COMMENTARY AsiaElec

compared with 2.76 tpy per person for the bot- extreme events.
tom 90% of humanity, and the NGO found that The report follows on previous research by
an average of 14% of their investments were in Oxford Economics, which found that reaching
polluting industries such as energy and cement. net zero by 2050 and facilitating the green transi-
More than half of the 50 largest sources of tion would create economic opportunities worth
GHG emissions are associated with oil and nat- $10.3 trillion by 2050, in 2020 prices, equivalent
ural gas fields, and those emissions are vastly to 5.2% of global GDP in that year.
under-reported, Oxfam said. The picture put forward by Oxford Econom-
ics is apocalyptic, and can only be avoided if gov-
Research ernments and corporations push green issues to
In its report, Oxford Economics went beyond the top of their investment agendas and do not
average historical temperature to provide a allow the issues to slide.
deeper assessment of climate change to show Just this week, the EU finally approved its
how temperature anomalies from historical proposed CBAM scheme, which is effectively
norms may be more consequential economically the world’s first carbon border tax.
than average temperature levels. This means CBAM is designed to protect against “carbon
that the when temperatures differ the most from leakage” – the risk that EU companies could
their underlying historic averages, the economy move carbon-intensive production abroad to
is more vulnerable to collapse than when average countries where less stringent climate policies
temperatures are rising across the board. are in place, or when EU products are replaced
This means that current warming of the by more carbon-intensive products.
earth’s atmosphere will have a greater impact on This is one of the many financing loopholes
people’s jobs, incomes and economic well-being that must be closed to meet green targets. The
than previously thought. CBAM follows G7 plans to establish a “climate
It identified a climate damage function that club” to strengthen international co-operation
separates economic impacts into two categories: on climate change mitigation. The “climate club”
global-warming effects due to temperatures aims to support increasingly ambitious plans to
trending away from their long-run means; and achieve global net-zero GHG emissions by or
broader climate change attributed to changes around 2050.-™
in temperature volatility and the likelihood of

Week 50 13•December•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P5