Renewable energy: a top priority in fighting climate change

During the launch of Development 52.3 ‘Beyond Economics’, which was held in New York on 29-31 October 2009, Assistant Editor Laura Fano Morrissey interviewed Tariq Banuri, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development at UNDESA. Before joining the United Nations, Tariq Banuri was Senior Fellow and Director of the Future Sustainability Program of the Stockholm Environment Institute.  He is also a member of Development’s Editorial Board.

LF You and your team at UNDESA have just produced the World Economic and Social Survey 2009 ‘Promoting Development, Saving the Planet’. What are the main messages of the publication?

TB The publication has three messages to put it very simply. It’s a larger document but I am just going to focus on these three messages. The first one is that we focused on things that unite people and countries rather than very divisive themes or fingerpointing. The theme that we have  focused on in addressing climate change is energy, especially renewable energy and energy efficiency. The second point is that looking at energy issues we noticed two things, one is that energy is fundamentally responsible for economic development and for achieving human development targets. Access to cheap and abundant energy was the driver of the industrial revolution and over a period of time it increased well-being tremendously but this is distributed very unequally. Energy consumption in industrialized countries is four times or higher than the average of developing countries. So energy is fundamental for human development. Number two: it is unequally distributed and therefore developing countries will need more. Number three is that renewable energy is too expensive so people cannot afford it, I mean renewable energy is meaningless if people cannot afford it. At the moment the cheapest source of energy is coal which has very high greenhouse gas emission potential but on the other hand it’s cheap and you can actually deliver energy quite easily. In industrialized countries what they are trying to do is raise the price of conventional energy so that renewables become more competitive. We don’t think that is the right solution, the right solution is to have a strategy that lowers the price of renewables so that it becomes affordable by all people and more importantly that it becomes a default option, that everybody would do it. Now fortunately this is very achievable because prices of renewable energy have come down dramatically and with further expansion of scale within the spam of seven years, maybe ten years, we can become completely competitive for what there is a market for. So that’s our second point. Focus on energy, number one. Number two the focus should be on expanding the scale and reducing the cost of renewable energy. Number three: how is it to be done? We don’t believe in a very gradualist approach, we believe that what the world needs is a big push, massive upfront investment in renewable energies. We also believe that this is not something that is going to cost as much as the climate economists are saying, in fact is a very cheap solution, because once you bring the cost down, everybody will be able to do it and it becomes possible. This is also a programme that needs very short transfers. We just need a transfer for the first 5 to 7 years, then we have a huge reduction in emissions. Once the cost comes down, there is no need for transfers. This is also something that unites everybody. Renewable energy for the poor, power to the people.

LF What is the responsibility of richer countries towards poorer countries in addressing climate change?

TB If this is posed in a stark way it can become very divisive because countries say: ‘why is it my responsibility?’ My answer is basically: try to solve the problem, then we think not in terms of cost but in terms of investment. If I invest in something I don’t have that problem anymore. In other words, if there is something that is leaking and constantly deteriorates, if I can get somebody to come and fix it then I don’t have to worry about it again. So I think that the right way to think about it is: ‘can we invest in something which will remove that problem from our table, that is in the interest of both rich countries and poor countries?’.

LF How does the climate crisis relate to the global economic crisis the world is currently experiencing?

TB Well, there are probably some precipitating factors, the thing is that the global economic crisis appears a variation of the business cycle. The economy expands, then contrasts. It used to happen quite a bit and after the Keynesian revolution it became more manageable nationally. In the 70s once the international exchange rates were liberalized and so forth, there was a long period of recession. 10 years ago we had the Asian financial crisis and now it has come again and it is a very huge crisis this time. So we think that there is some kind of structural process, something that economists have known for a long time it would happen and we do need a proper remedy for it, looking at reforming the financial institutional structure and so on. At this point in time it does get triggered by some things, it was triggered by the energy crisis and the food crisis, which have to do more with climate change and long-term commodity scarcity, petroleum in particular and other commodities more generally. There is a long-term problem which we need to address including climate change, including that we are exhausting our non-renewable natural resources and overusing our resources and if we don’t do it we might be responsible for this, and then the economic system will try to adjust and will put countries in recession.

LF Why do you think addressing the climate crisis should be a priority if we want to improve the well-being of the poor and marginalized?

TB I think the main thing is that if we don’t address the climate crisis there will be very severe dislocations of economic lives as well as people’s lives. And much of that, the brunt of that will be borne by poor people partly because of the way in which the climate crisis will unfold but partly because we have fewer resources with which the poor can cope. So I think from the perspective of the poor is very important that we respond to the climate crisis and avoid as much of the danger to their lives and livelihoods as possible. But it’s also very important that we should give poor communities, poor countries the capacity and support they need to respond to it. We have a problem which is solvable, it is not expensive, and it is in the interest of the rich and poor countries alike.

Cover photo credit: alextorrenegra

Written by: Laura

Filed Under: Development, Ecology, Featured, Interviews

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About Laura

Laura Fano Morrissey is External Relations Officer at the SID Secretariat in Rome. She is also working on the journal Development as Assistant Editor. Laura graduated in Political Science and holds a Master’s Degree in Latin American Studies from the University of London. She has worked extensively in the NGO sector, mainly with a focus on Latin America.

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