On this day, October 30 in 2006 the Stern Review was published. This had been commissioned by Gordon Brown, the United Kingdom “Chancellor of the Exchequer” (Treasurer) a year previously (see this blog post).
Nick Stern, a World Bank economist who could hardly be accused of being a swivel-eyed Luddite, argued that
“This Review has assessed a wide range of evidence on the impacts of climate change and on the economic costs, and has used a number of different techniques to assess costs and risks. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting.”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 379.33ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Why this matters.
We knew. And we knew there was a “business case” for saving life on earth (the very words are bizarre, aren’t they?)
What happened next?
Oh, arguments about the “discount rate” (i.e. Stern was too optimistic)
A variety of “mini-Stern” reports, and for a while everyone using the language. Then nothing.
Fun fact – when Stern visited Australia, Prime Minister John Howard basically dismissed him as “English.”