Tagged: South Africa
Prosper and live long
Advocates of the Genuine Progress Index argue that traditional measures of our economic health, mainly the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), mislead us by mixing up good spending (on the likes of lobster, turnips, and bicycles) with bad (on oil spills, crime, and car crashes), and because it fails to account for depletion of natural resources. Those critiques, while valid and important, don’t completely obviate the relevance of GDP. A new chart from Gapminder (previously mentioned in one of my all-time favorite Contrarian posts), shows that higher GDP per person equals longer life:
The trend is unmistakable, and at first glance, the few outliers (South Africa, Russia, to a lesser extent, the USA) are countries with wide income disparity. Download larger versions here [pdf or ppt].
Hat tip: Cliff Kuang at Fast Company.
World Bank spends billions on coal-fired power stations
The Times of London reports that the World Bank is pumping billions into the construction of coal-fired power plants in India, Botswana, and South Africa, despite a recent bank report citing the disproportionate impact of climate change on third world countries.
The bank’s World Development Report says: “Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change — a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. Increasing access to energy and other services using high-carbon technologies will produce more greenhouse gases, hence more climate change.”
The report says that between 75 and 80 per cent of the damage caused by climate change through drought, floods and rising sea levels will happen in developing countries. It calls on richer nations, including Britain, to increase the amount that they spend on helping developing countries to adapt to climate change.
The bank also wants global spending on research and development on sustainable sources of energy to be increased from the present $70billion (£40billion) a year to $700billion.
The report says that unless the world acts now to cut carbon dioxide emissions it faces a 5C (9F) rise in global temperatures by the end of the century. “Such a drastic temperature shift would cause the possible dieback of the Amazon rainforest, complete loss of glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas, and rapid ocean acidification leading to death of coral reefs,” it says.
The 260-page report advises against “locking the world into high-carbon infrastructure” but makes no mention of the bank’s plans to subsidise coal power plants in India, South Africa, Botswana and other developing countries.
Canada is a major supporter of the World Bank, consistently ranking among the top 10 contributors to the bank’s capital.
Hatttp: Energy Bulletin
