Every year I give a lecture to the master’s students of @Hadassah Medical school on the economics of aid. There are students from all over the world and last year we were discussing the problems of malnutrition and how to help the poorest people in the world - an important subject. As a side issue and out of curiosity, I asked class whether the issues of environment mattered. Surprisingly most of the students in the class and particularly the African students said yes. I was perplexed by this answer because I felt that when people are starving in sub-Saharan Africa the least of the problems are whether they should have their power generated by fossil fuels or by solar. Africans contribute only 3.8% of global greenhouse gas output. Is it up to poor Africans to solve a problem caused by the rich industrialized world?
There is whole bunch of people with different causes who are jumping on the climate change bandwagon. Certain thinkers who are very critical of the capitalist system and in particular, how our major corporations behave. They believe we should severely restrict market forces and free trade because of its harm to the climate. Now it is true that the more economic development you have the more greenhouse gases one produces. But one should not forget that the wealthier the country, the more money you can spend to mitigate greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gas emissions in some of the wealthiest countries are actually dropping fast. In other words, and this is worth emphasizing, the more money you have, the more you can do for climate change. This means two things.
- We should expect most of the burden of reducing greenhouse gases to fall on the richer countries and
- We should not stop growing our economies because the more we grow the more we can actually tax and use these revenues to deal with decarbonization.
So next time you hear somebody connecting climate issues to restricting trade, women's rights, or poverty in Africa tell them to keep quiet. This is just confusing the issue and in many ways it is harmful. Don't let these other causes jump on the bandwagon.
David Waimann is VP Energy at OurCrowd Investments and executive director at five water and renewable energy tech companies. drw@ourcrowd.com
This article is part of a series of more than 20 posts discussing climate policy and technology.
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