Nicholas Stern

Current carbon prices around the world are too weak to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, and Europe needs to show leadership by driving up pricing levels, Nicholas Stern will warn in a speech at the One Planet Summit today (12 December) in Paris.

Lord Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, will say:

“Europe can and should show leadership in carbon pricing. Current carbon pricing around the world is weak on coverage and is at levels far below those necessary. To deliver the goals of the Paris Agreement prices must reach $40-80 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2020, and $50-100 by 2030. Europe can drive prices to these levels quickly.”

Lord Stern will add:

“Fossil fuels must be confronted with their real costs, and polluters must pay if markets are to work and emissions are to fall at the rate necessary to deliver the Paris goals. However, a carbon price by itself cannot deliver the required design of cities and networks that will be crucial to reducing emissions on the scale necessary. Carbon pricing must be supported by other policies to drive the low-carbon transition. Regulation must play its role too, for example by driving out coal from our power systems quickly and stopping the sale of new cars powered by fossil fuels over the next couple of decades.”

 

For more information about this media release please contact Victoria Druce on +44 (0) 20 7107 5865 or v.druce@lse.ac.uk or Bob Ward on +44 (0) 7811 320346 or r.e.ward@lse.ac.uk.

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

  1. Lord Stern is chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, as well as I.G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Between 2013 and 2017, Lord Stern was President of the British Academy for the humanities and social sciences. Lord Stern was with HM Treasury between October 2003 and May 2007. He served as Second Permanent Secretary and Head of the Government Economic Service, head of the review of the economics of climate change (the results of which were published in ‘The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review’ in October 2006), and director of policy and research for the Commission for Africa. His previous posts included Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at the World Bank, and Chief Economist and Special Counsellor to the President at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Baron Stern of Brentford was introduced in December 2007 to the House of Lords, where he sits on the independent cross-benches. He was recommended as a non-party-political life peer by the UK House of Lords Appointments Commission in October 2007.
  2. The ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (https://www.cccep.ac.uk/) is hosted by the University of Leeds and the London School of Economics and Political Science. It is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (https://www.esrc.ac.uk/). The Centre’s mission is to advance public and private action on climate change through rigorous, innovative research.
  3. The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (https://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham) was launched at the London School of Economics and Political Science in October 2008. It is funded by The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment (https://www.granthamfoundation.org/).

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