Carbon Price, Social Push Needed to Curb Emissions

[N]ew commitments to cut emissions by China, the United States, Europe and other countries, as part of a new global deal due in December to tackle climate change, will play a big role in pushing energy investment toward cleaner alternatives, economist Fatih Birol said.

Energy companies "need to take climate policy more seriously", he warned at a week-long meeting of climate scientists in Paris.

"If they think their businesses ... are immune to the impacts of climate policy, they are making a strategic mistake."
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At the same time, however, the use of coal for power is unexpectedly gaining ground, not only in economic powerhouses such as China and India but in fast-growing African nations like Angola, Benin, Tanzania and Sudan, said Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The global surge in coal use, which is outpacing gains in energy efficiency and uptake of clean energy, is one reason – alongside economic growth and population increases – that greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, he said.

The key to stopping it will be putting a price on carbon emissions to make cleaner sources of energy more attractive, something he called “not sufficient but essential and a necessary condition for any kind of climate policy”.
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But Frank Geels, an expert in systems innovation and sustainability at Britain's University of Manchester, warned “it's political suicide for most countries to introduce a carbon price that bites”, despite it clearly being needed.

Social Tipping Points
Another potentially effective but controversial way of reducing emissions would be to consider compensating oil, gas and coal companies for reserves they control but that should remain untapped to meet climate change goals, Geels said.

"In many transitions we need to compensate the losers," he said. "If we do not, they will fight hand and tooth to resist any carbon price. It might be better to buy them out."
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Persuading politicians to support the ambitious changes needed will require first getting voters to see taking action as important, said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist with the Carnegie Institution for Science in the United States.

Read more at Carbon Price, Social Push Needed to Curb Emissions: Economists