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Supporters of a UN Climate Pact Say It's an Economic Issue — Not Just a Moral One

World leaders will meet in Paris later this year to hammer out a deal on cutting carbon pollution — an effort compatible with economic growth, says UN climate agency head.
Imagen por John Minchillo/AP

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It's the Holy Grail of climate change — reducing fossil-fuel emissions without slashing the growth needed to lift billions of the world's people out of poverty.

With the clock ticking down on plans for a global pact to head off the worst effects of a warming world, some analysts are increasingly hopeful about the prospects of hitting that ecological-economic exacta.

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"In the past, many of these outcomes were potentially contradictory," Helen Mountford, director of economics for World Resources Institute, told VICE News. "But because of a number of factors, it's now possible to have both."

Mountford also serves as program director of the New Climate Economy, which is slated to release a new report in June on how to hit that sweet spot. Its release date is about six months before leaders from roughly 200 countries gather in Paris for a UN summit to tackle climate change.

Related: Scientists say we're three minutes from doomsday

The world body hopes to hammer out a deal that will limit global temperature rise to an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over the pre-industrial level. That's about half what temperatures are likely to hit on their current trajectory, bringing with them a world of higher seas, more intense storms, and longer droughts. And the world's developing countries are likely to bear the brunt of the resulting troubles.

The UN's top official on climate issues, Christiana Figueres, told an audience in the Norwegian capital Oslo this week that a proposed climate pact will be aimed at boosting growth and development, according to Reuters. Figueres said there was "good progress" toward a deal, but that the pact would not be a "silver bullet."

Worldwide energy use has grown by more than half since 1990, according to a New Climate Economy report issued last September. More than half of the growth since 2000 has occurred in China alone, and global demand for energy is expected to grow by 20 to 35 percent in the next 15 years, it found.

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But in the same period, there have also been some rapid changes that are likely to make it easier to hit that 2-degree target, Mountford said. Some of the changes that are likely to make that pathway easier are well known, like the rapid spread of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar.

"There's certainly options out there that can get us on the 2-degree pathway," she said.

Related: It might be possible to reduce carbon emissions and grow the economy at the same time

The price of solar energy has plummeted to about 1 percent of what it cost in 1980, while energy efficiency has gone up sharply. That gives industrializing countries the chance to extend the benefits of electricity to rural populations with less need to build an expensive, fossil fuel-driven power grid, she said — and to have more flexibility about what feeds the wires that will supply booming cities.

But she said burning less coal or oil has other benefits as well, including less smog — and better health for the people who would be living under it otherwise.

"We estimated that the cost of poorer air quality associated with burning fossil fuels was valued at about 4 percent of GDP on average across the top richest economies," Mountford told VICE News. Not only does that save money on health care, "You have significantly lower premature deaths," she said. "It's not just illnesses, it's people living longer."

A glimpse of that potential future came in 2014, when global CO2 emissions remained flat even as the world's economy grew 3 percent, according to International Energy Agency figures. It was the first time in four decades that emissions didn't go up during a period of growth — but scientists say the world will have to not only limit new emissions but draw down sharply from current levels if it's going to come anywhere close to the 2-degree mark.

Mountford said she was "very optimistic" about the chances of getting a deal in Paris that will head off the worst-case scenarios. But she added, "Whether well be able to seize the opportunities and take advantage of them is another question … it's a question of working out the political will to do so."

Follow Matt Smith on Twitter: @mattsmithatl