Today is Climate Day

A group of high muck-a-mucks - four former presidents or prime ministers, two Nobel economics laureates and people from financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and Asian Development Bank -  have produced another report, "Better Growth, Better Climate". As the title indicates, the report argues that improved economic and intelligent growth will improve our climate picture.

The report advocates structural reform in urban infrastructure, in farmland and forests and in energy markets. The three of these areas account for the lion's share of greenhouse-gas emissions. Cities generate the most emissions and are where most of the population growth will occur. The authors believe that cities are too spread out. If they were more dense and had better transportation, urban sprawl would not be the problem it is today. And sprawl is costly; the authors estimate it costs us $400 billion a year and would be significantly reduced if we had more extensive systems of roads, sewers and the like. As important, a better infrastructure would cut greenhouse-gas emissions by the equivalent of 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, mainly because commuters would switch from cars to public transport (or bicycles).

The solution is not restricted to cities. The authors believe we should double our investment in agriculture research and forests. Major cuts in subsidies for fertilizers would go far to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. While we're on subsidies, let's look at those for fossil fuels which currently run at $540 billion a year. They say we should eliminate them and stop using coal.

Here is a summary of their plan.