Joseph Stiglitz: recommendation

Transcript context

…Should the World Bank right now be emphasizing climate change, as they seem to be doing? A lot of the poorer nations have complained. They say it’s not their priority. They actually want to use more energy, some of which will be dirty energy. What’s your view on that? I think the World Bank’s emphasis on climate change is important, is critical. Climate is a public good. It’s a global public good from which all of us will benefit, and most especially those in the developing world and emerging markets, which disproportionately are located along the tropics, and those are going to be most adversely affected if we have the kind of climate change that will occur if we don’t curb the emissions of carbon, of greenhouse gases. So, it’s in their interest that these be curbed. Now, we are at a lucky time for them because over the last 15 years, the price of renewable energy has come down 90 percent or more. In fact, at the current time, by moving to renewable energy — which is actually more decentralizable; you have fewer of these big mega projects — developing countries actually, I think, can do more smaller projects better. I think they’re really advantaged by going more and more towards renewable energy. A more recent paper that I’ve written with Nick Stern, head of the Stern Review — written at the UK about moving them along to green transition — was that growth and a green transition are very compatible, that making an early move to the green transition is actually a pro-growth move for developing countries in emerging markets. To me, that kind of tension which they argue, I think is a misframing of the issue. I understand their view that the whole issue is inflicted on them because the advanced countries put so much carbon into the atmosphere, beginning with the Industrial Revolution. So, I understand their sense of grievance. But right now, actually, the developing countries in emerging markets are the larger emitter of greenhouse gases, so they really have a responsibility, and we’re not going to address climate change unless they’re on board. Climate change is a real example of the major theme of my book, On the Road to Freedom. It’s a real case where one country’s freedom imposes a cost on others, where the freedom to pollute really does constrain what others can do. If we have more pollution, we’re going to get more desertification. We’re going to get more floods, more droughts. It is probably one of the most important examples of how the expansion of freedom by some constrains that of others. What’s your current view of Hugo Chávez, who is not himself, in every way, pro-green?…

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