The Economics of Climate Change

Climate change poses a problem for the economic system that fostered the polluting industrial revolutions of coal and oil. Today, the digital economy revolution offers significant hope for reducing pollution and promoting decarbonisation. However, the economic interest struggles of the powerful lobbies of the polluting sectors seem to reduce the potential for transformation of an economic system driven by the search for short-term profit. The major powers want to preserve their economic gains and are undertaking this revolution at a pace that suits them, which is not without conflict, given the urgency of action in the face of the harmful transformations undergone by eco-systems. Furthermore, the GAFAMs, the powerful providers of digital services and instruments, together with their Chinese competitors, have a considerable economic and strategic force that could undermine freedoms and human and citizens' rights. Finally, for the production of digital tools, rare earths are likely to pose new problems, those relating to the pollution involved in their production and their relative scarcity compared to the stocks known today.