GREEN CAPITALISM.

• Author: Chichilnisky, Graciela

INTRODUCTION

Green capitalism is a new economic system that values the natural resources on which human survival depends. It fosters a harmonious relationship with our planet, its resources, and the many species it harbors. It is a new type of market economics that addresses both equity and efficiency. (1) Using carbon negative technology, it is possible to reduce carbon in the atmosphere while fostering economic development in rich and developing nations, for example in the United States, the European Union, China, and India. How does this work?

In a nutshell, Green Capitalism requires the creation of global limits or property rights for the use of the atmosphere, the bodies of water, and the planet's biodiversity, and the creation of new markets to trade these rights. From this, new economic values emerge, as does a new concept of economic progress that goes beyond GDP. (2)

Green Capitalism can help avert Climate Change and achieve the goals of the 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement, which are very ambitious and almost universally supported but have no way to be realized within the agreement itself. Green Capitalism is needed to achieve the requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report which focuses on averting catastrophic Climate Change. The Kyoto Protocol carbon market and its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) can also play critical roles in the foundation of Green Capitalism by using carbon negative technologies to help the world remain within the world's "CO2 budget."

Below are the building blocks for Green Capitalism and practical examples of how these organizing principles can be put into practice. They illustrate how new carbon negative technologies can help achieve the climate negotiation goals, averting climate change.

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR GREEN CAPITALISM

The three building blocks for Green Capitalism are:

1. Global limits imposed nation by nation in the use of the planet's atmosphere, water bodies, and biodiversity.

2. New types of markets to trade these limits, based on equity and efficiency, which are relatives of the Kyoto carbon market and the Sulphur dioxide (S02) market. Their prices create new measures of economic value and update the concept of GDP.

3. Efficient use of carbon negative technologies to remain within the world's carbon budget and avert catastrophic climate risks, providing a transition to clean energy and ensuring economic prosperity in rich and poor nations.

The building blocks have practical implications. On the basis of these blocks it is possible to resolve key goals of global policy. For example, we could create a $200 billion per year Green Power Fund from existing funding sources, including the Kyoto CDM, to ensure a smooth and accelerated transition to clean energy, achieving the goals of the UN Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, and of the UN Green Climate Fund.

The building blocks offer practical ways to avert climate change and assist the ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement, which cannot be achieved within the Agreement's terms themselves.

Indeed, according to the 2014 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, carbon negative technologies, also known as carbon removal, are now needed on a massive scale in our century in order to avert catastrophic climate change.

Below are practical examples of how these building blocks can help achieve the goals of the UNFCCC, using carbon negative technologies while fostering growth in developing nations and overcoming poverty, all of which require more energy supplies.

CARBON NEGATIVE POWER PLANTS FOR DEVELOPING NATIONS

New generation technologies can capture CO2 from the atmosphere at low cost. (3) These technologies can be used to build carbon negative power plants that clean the atmosphere of CO2 while producing electricity. (4) Global Thermostat LLC is an award-winning firm that can be used as an example. The firm is commercializing a technology that takes CO2 out of air and uses low-cost residual heat rather than electricity to drive the capture process, making the entire process of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere inexpensive. There is enough residual heat in a coal power plant that to capture twice as much CO2 as the plant emits, thus transforming the power plant into a "carbon sink." For...