Climate change is the greatest known threat to economic growth and well-being. To confront this peril, world leaders, especially of the large economies, must commit to much stronger cuts in carbon emissions than currently envisaged at the United Nations conference starting Monday in Paris. But the challenge is bigger. To bring about lasting change, countries will need to reform the way their economies generate growth.
What makes this difficult is political leaders' differing beliefs about what generates growth. After all, carbon-intensive production created wealth in the past. So many still see a change in this recipe as inimical to expansion. Yet the reality is just the opposite. In the face of mounting disasters linked to human-made global warming, a low-carbon path is the only way to progress.
To appreciate why, note that the current growth path within a quarter century will push carbon concentrations in the atmosphere to the critical 450 parts per million. Beyond this threshold, temperatures will rise above 2 degrees from preindustrial levels, with catastrophic impact: Just released data warn that we are already halfway to that dreaded mark. The 10 hottest years on record occurred after 1997, and 2015 has surpassed 2014 as the hottest. Asia is on the front line of climate-related disasters.
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