Economics and the Ecosystem

The essays collected here grapple with different aspects of what, if natural scientists are to be believed, is the most profound set of issues humanity has ever faced. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was created in 1992. Article 2 of the Convention, states its goal as the “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (UNFCCC, 1992: p. 4). The subsequent “Conference of the Parties” process is formally supposed to achieve this. However, during the period since then, despite the Kyoto Protocols signed at COP 3 in 1997, and the subsequent 2015 Paris Agreement, which will come into force in the new decade, annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased massively (UNFCCC, 2015; Morgan, 2016). The rate of increase of carbon emissions has markedly reduced in recent years, but the absolute annual figure remains huge. In 2017 total annual gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions reached a record high of 53.5 (UNEP, 2018). This is important because emissions remain in the atmosphere for long periods - CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for well over a century. As the cumulative parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere increase, then the warming effect created by the gases also increases which leads to positive feedbacks and the increased chance of a global ecosystem collapse.