'Link climate to economy'

Addressing climate change should play a greater role in the world economic recovery, Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and professor of economics at Columbia University said at a public lecture in Pretoria on Monday.

"Addressing climate change can be a part of the recovery," he said, adding that once the world economy had achieved a recovery, it would be more difficult to get green technologies to be part of the world economy.

Limiting emissions globally would see countries having to cut their emissions globally by 80 percent, but he said that this figure would vary from country to country.

Stiglitz said a carbon tax of $80 a ton was a realistic tax that would encourage investment in green technologies. He was in favour of carbon taxes and was critical of trading in emissions permits, which he believed would see the worst polluters obtain permits.

Stiglitz had been disappointed in the world's failure to reach an agreement at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

He said the biggest impediment to reaching an agreement on how to tackle the climate change was on how to share the burden of cutting emissions.

Source: http://business.iafrica.com

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