Professor Jeffrey Sachs held the opening lecture at the fourth edition of the Siena International School on Sustainable Development. Here are some of the key points to remember:
A global network of knowledge, awareness, expertise, and partnerships is needed to tackle all of the world’s major challenges today, such as pandemics, wars and peace, and human induced climate change.
To address climate change, a holistic viewpoint must be adopted in order to have a positive impact on energy system transformation and decarbonization, both of which are key elements in ensuring climate safety.
The agenda of climate change is a broad and complex agenda that includes transformation, adaptation, resilience, finance, burden sharing, and the development of new technologies. Since politicians live in the present of power and do not consider enough about the future, they often undervalue the importance and the urgency of this interconnected and technical issue.
Climate change is an international and intergenerational issue. The time scale of this problem would exceed that of most human problems without international cooperation.
The risk and vulnerability to which we are being exposed today have been built over a long period of time. It will take decades for us to escape from them.
Decarbonization is a challenging issue with a heavy overload in the developing countries for which overcoming poverty is another major agenda.
Climate and economy have causation running in both directions: the economy produces greenhouse gasses (GHG’s), and economic activity also changes the surface of the Earth. This direction is related to decarbonization and thus breaking the link between economic activity and the greenhouse gas emissions is crucial, particularly the one from energy to CO2. On the other hand, the fact that economy-induced climate change through global warming and other impacts has disastrous effects on our economy explains the high interest in decarbonization.
Several policies can be adopted to act against climate change: mitigation actions to reduce emissions; adaptation actions so that economic activities can continue in the event that climate change effects occur; technology policies and global governance actions.
In order to achieve full decarbonization by 2050 it is necessary to follow different pathways at the same time: the most important one is the energy related pathway, as many greenhouse gasses come from the use of fossil fuel. Other pathways in the industrial sector and land use should be addressed as well, due to the huge use of impacting products (cement, petrochemicals, pesticides).
The transition of the energy system requires action consisting of several activities: digitization, electrification, research and development, and zero-carbon fuels.
We have grown up in a fossil fuel-based world economy, but now we have to get out of it because we are using a significant amount of fossil fuel that we are emitting between 35 and 40 billion tons of CO2 per year.
Because a significant amount of fossil fuels are emitted each year, between 35 and 40 billion tons of CO2, a fossil fuel-based world economy must now be transformed.
The energy system should be transformed: a great deal of effort has been dedicated, and the good news is that it is an affordable addition that is comparable to what we would pay in a fossil-fuel economy.
The best way to achieve a sustainable energy system is through a combination of strategies: producing electricity in the future with zero carbon power (mainly wind, solar, hydro nuclear fuels), electrification of everything that can be electrified including our cars, and zero-carbon fuels for the parts that can’t be electrified.
From an economic point of view, one argument to highlight is that a Zero Carbon Transition is not prohibitively expensive, but it does necessitate a significant amount of upfront financing. To make the transition from the low capital cost of fossil fuels to the high capital cost of renewables feasible, significant capital for upfront investments with low enough interest rates is required.
Digitizing and decarbonizing is a good package deal. The digital economy such as e-commerce, e-services, and e-management of infrastructure, together with decarbonization is desirable.
A holistic approach should be taken. The approach must be sustainable development, which includes economic progress, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
