Amid the pressures of the global financial crisis, some ask, how can the Philippines and the rest of the world afford to tackle climate change and, at the same time, get the economy moving again?

Top economist and climate-change expert Lord Nicholas Stern said the problem could be tackled without stunting economic growth through changing to a low-carbon global economy.

He said governments across the world should invest in a green economy to manage the global economic crisis and global warming.

“Low carbon growth is the only growth option,” according to Lord Stern, a former chief of the World Bank.

“With strong, deliberate policy choices it is possible to ‘decarbonize’ both developed and developing economies on the scale required for climate stabilization, while maintaining economic growth in both,” Lord Stern told journalists recently at the Scientific Climate Change Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lord Stern is the British author of the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,” the single most influential political document on global warming yet published two-and-a-half years ago. It has been closely studied by the governments of every major country.

He described climate change as the “greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen,” but said that action could and should be taken to avert the worst effects.

Action to tackle climate change could form a central part of fiscal packages to stimulate national economies, Lord Stern said. He added that with the economic crisis, the rapid advancement of low-carbon technologies available, the deepening of public awareness and US President Obama’s commitment to cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050, the way may be opened for slowly remaking the global energy economy.

“Developing countries are likely to be hit hardest, but developed nations will also suffer. Politicians have failed to realize the seriousness of the situation,” Lord Stern told journalists. “We need governments and businesses to move forward much faster than we are now.”

He said investing in renewable energy or in market mechanisms that make a low-carbon, efficient economy possible will today only cost 1 percent of world GDP, in comparison to the infinite billions the world might lose, and the people might suffer, in the future.

Lord Stern admitted he had “underestimated the cost of inaction,” and that it could ultimately cost us as much as 30 percent.

Earlier, scientists predicted that by the end of this century, the sea level could rise beyond 1.2 meters as dire consequences of accelerated melting of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland.

A sea-level rise of 1 meter or more is predicted to have a devastating effect on major coastal cities, island states and populous delta areas such as those in Bangladesh and Myanmar and the Philippines.

At the same time, a new report released early this month by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) identified the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Sumatra and Indonesia as climate-change “hotspots” in Southeast Asia. These countries are particularly vulnerable to some of the worst manifestations of climate change, such as the increase in extreme drought, flooding, sea-level rise, landslide and cyclones expected in the coming decades.

“I think it’s vital that people understand the magnitude of the risks, but also that they understand that [by cutting emissions] we can reduce the probability of going there very dramatically,” Lord Stern said.

Poor countries struggling to adapt

The Philippines and other developing countries are most vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change. Compared with developed countries, they could suffer much more losses if measures were not taken efficiently, according to Heherson Alvarez, Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change.

Developed and developing countries share “common but differentiated” responsibilities when the whole world tried to cope with serious consequences of climate change, he said.

“Developed countries must shoulder their historical responsibilities to provide technological and financial support to developing countries. Rich countries should speed up technological transfer and lower the cost to benefit developing countries,” Alvarez told the BusinessMirror.

Meanwhile, developing countries should enhance their understanding of possible impacts brought about by climate change, and improve policy and capacity building to better respond to climate change, Alvarez said.

“We have no time to lose. The data are now clearly presented and have very high confidence levels. We cannot wait for another five or 10 years. We must act now,” he added.

Bangladeshi scientist Saleemul Huq, head of the Climate Change Group at the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development, agreed with Alvarez, adding that rich countries need to immediately put sufficient funding of the priority adaptation projects in the least developing countries under the National Adaptation Plan of Action (Napa).

He said that so far the total amount pledged to this fund is about less than $200 million, far from the required $2 billion for the 49 Napa projects approved by the United Nations.

“Science should be the backbone for politicians to make a strong decision. We now have to do things with urgency and we can’t wait any longer,” he told the BusinessMirror. “Let us not make people suffer in the developing countries because of inaction. We will have to build the good deal of trust between developed and developing countries to reach an agreement in Copenhagen this year.”