>> APABIS Website >> Singapore 2008 Conference >> Plenary Speakers >> K Hargroves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions globally there is a real need for a greater level of urgency and sophistication around the realities of delivering cost effective strategies and policies to achieve emissions stabilisation. The Stern Review explored in detail the concept of stabilisation trajectories and pointed out that there are two distinct phases: 1) global emissions need to stop growing, i.e. emissions levels would peak and begin to decline; and 2) there would need to be a sustained reduction of annual greenhouse gas emissions across the entire global economy of up to five percent per annum. The key to understanding the future impacts on business and industry of an ambitious approach to emissions reduction is to develop practices and process that can achieve a balance in the timing of the emissions peak and the corresponding requirement for a tailing off of emissions annually across the economy. A late peak will allow short term reduction levels to be relaxed but will then require a greater level of annual sustained reduction to meet the overall target. An early peak will require a rapid short term reduction level, but these efforts will be rewarded by a lower level of required sustained annual reductions. The benefit of using stabilisation trajectories as the basis for policy development is that we can capitalise on the already abundant opportunities for short term reductions to achieve the peak, while also building the experience and economies of scale to seriously tackle the issue of sustained reductions. The beauty of the sustained reductions model is that it allows an economy to stage the activities it undertakes to allow for certain industries to be given more time, or ‘head room’ to respond as the industries that can make short and medium term gains contribute to achieving the average overall reduction, potentially rewarded through an emissions trading scheme.