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Roel Pieterman's avatar

Indeed horrible. Another example of what in the fields of agricultural and environmental development is sometimes called eco-colonialism.

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John Plodinec's avatar

Roger:-

I think the paper – or at least your framing of it – conflates two issues.

• The scenarios are, well, just scenarios: at least somewhat plausible projections of what might be the future.

Given the crime, corruption, civil wars and tribal conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, increasing their per capita standard of living (using GDP as a proxy) by 3X in the next quarter century seems ... ambitious. Do those countries have the capacity (most importantly, human, social and cultural capital) to do better? Frankly, I'm a little dubious.

• The policies that are developed around those scenarios are the real issue, for me. For example, suppose we imagined a future that somehow sub-Saharan Africa achieves parity with the developed world, then we run the risk of creating another RCP 8.5, and its cloud of poor policies.

The problem with the policy-making is that the decision-makers haven't defined victory correctly. 1.5 C, 2 C shouldn't be goals; they're poorly-conceived and artificially created pseudo-goals that really have no meaning. Our goal as human beings should be to lift as many out of poverty as possible (OK, that's MY morality talking, others may not think of that as paramount.) no matter where or who they are. I personally see red whenever I hear people spouting off about doing away with fossil fuels EVERYWHERE which would doom those who are Without to live in continued penury no matter where they are.

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