31st August 2015.

Dear Delegate,

When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out every time.

There is no point in spending a lovely week in Paris talking about what should be done about Climate change and coming up with an agreement to cut emissions by placing A Price Tag on carbon.

The true financial costs of climate change is away beyond any price tag or unenforceable agreement.

What value do we place on the ocean’s coral reefs and the myriad animals they support, and how do we weigh their loss against other values? What price tag do you put on a species of bird or fish or mammal which, once gone, will never return?

How does humanity weigh moral accountability if our own carbon emissions contributed to that destruction?

Isn’t it about a sustainable planet? A sustainable and biologically diverse planet?

Most likely our descendants will be left to adapt to a warmer world where greater climatic uncertainties, depleted resources and human migrations, amongst other, will be the norm.

If climate change affects not only a country’s economic output but also its growth, then that has a permanent effect that accumulates over time, leading to a much higher social cost of carbon than any price tag agreed.

The economic damage caused by a ton of carbon dioxide emissions – often referred to as the “social cost” of carbon – will actually be far higher than any of us can imagine.

There is no solution to an event that is all ready taking place.

There can only be a change to the event or a confinement to the end result.

If there is no solution to how the world is going to finance this change your and you fellow delegates might as well go home and bask in the sunshine of an agreement that is as porous as the paper it is written on.

In his fascinating book “Catastrophe: Risk and Response”, published in 2004, Richard Posner argues that we do not do enough to hedge against catastrophic risks such as climate change, asteroid impacts or bioterrorism.

In light of the “competition” of existential risks, how much should humanity invest in the mitigation of climate change?

The answer is:  Human extinction is a risk we all share—and it would be an unprecedented event that can happen only once.

Growth at all costs is the mantra of the technological world we live. Climate policies that require public sacrifice and limiting economic growth are doomed to failure.

Believe in the current pledge-and-review mechanism is a farce.

From current projections we know that climate change will pose a serious challenge by 2040 for many organisations. Putting a true economic cost on these risks can act as a catalyst to taking action today in order to help organisations better prepare for the future.

There is only one way to achieve this and that is the creation of a World Aid Commission or tax on profit   for profit sake.

Would you rather have a one percent tax increase on everyone in the country or kill one percent of the population?  This will not work as the cost of collection and administration, or culling, would out weigh any benefits.

The solution is a Universal 0.05% commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions and on all Drilling Wells.  

This will create a perpetual Fund to tackle the world problems.  

 

The expected loss to society because of catastrophic climate change is so large that it cannot be reliably estimated.

Climate policies should flow with the current of public opinion rather than against it, and efforts to sell the public on policies that will create short-term economic discomfort. People are willing to bear costs to reduce emissions, but they are only willing to go so far.

The Dangerous Underestimation of Climate

Change’s Cost and the

financing of any agreement is self-evident.