This lecture considers the economic impact of climate change on and by the largest “emerging markets” of the G20, such as China, India and Brazil. Simply stabilising emissions in these countries would make a greater contribution to reducing warming as an 80% emissions reduction in Western countries. The carbon intensity of economic development in the emerging markets are also first-order determinants of the likelihood of dangerous climate change in the coming century. The lecture addresses how the economic structure of the problem leads to particular strategic dynamics within the international negotiations, explaining the current impasse and also exploring the possibility for a “low-carbon race” between nations to develop cleaner technology.
This is a part of the 2011 City of London Festival. The other lectures in this series are:
Culture and Resistance by Michael Walling
The Relationship between Music and Sounds from the Natural World by David Matthews
Percy Grainger: Australia's Greatest Composer by Malcolm Gillies
Voices of the Land: Nga reo o te Whenua by Richard Nunns
Dr Cameron Hepburn is an economist specialising in environmental and public policy. He holds Fellowships at the LSE and Oxford University. He was educated at Melbourne University in Law and Chemical Engineering, and earned his doctorate in economics from Oxford (as a Rhodes Scholar). He is actively involved in public policy as a member of the DEFRA Academic Panel and as a founder of Vivid Economics. He contributed two background research papers to the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.
