timola
pfm Member
The main perspective is from doing the most good with the finite resources the world has or is willing to spend. They use economic arguments such as every dollar spent on the Paris agreement only has an impact of 0.4cents on averting its goal of 1.5 degrees temperature rise (I'm going from memory so may be wrong).I think the exec summary of the climate change piece is highly simplistic, and considers only the effects on humanity, ignoring concerns over biodiversity, extinctions and risks of a tipping point. I haven't read the full piece, but is everything on that website reduced to consideration of the issues affecting people, or is a wider, more ethical perspective taken at all?
The biggest criticism of them is that every dollar spent on the Paris agreement will benefit everyone on the planet, whether rich or poor.
They try to put climate change into perspective with the other main problems of humanity. Nobody rich is going to be drastically affected by climate change, but the poor are dying by the millions now where any money spent would do far more good. Lifting people out of poverty would also protect them from any climate change problems. Building flood defenses is better use of resources than limiting sea level rise by controlling CO2, more people die of cold than heat, renewable energy is too costly and money could be spent improving that directly than increasing the costs of fossil fuels to the poor.....etc, etc.