UN climate science head calls for carbon pricing

The new head of the United Nations’s climate science agency said countries around the world need to implement systems to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

Hoesung Lee, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said at a news conference in his native South Korea that he wants the agency to put more focus on solving problems around climate change.

{mosads}“During the election campaign, I realized how much the countries longed for the organization’s leading role in solving the problem of climate change,” Lee said, according to the Korea Herald. “The practical tool for that, I believe, is the pricing of carbon emissions.”

Lee did not specify whether countries should implement carbon taxes, cap and trade or some other method, and said that should be left to individual governments.

“The pricing methods vary and it must be chosen based on each country’s conditions,” Lee said. “But one thing is sure that they need to pay as much as they release greenhouse gases. There’s an unavoidable need to price the carbon emissions.”

Lee, a professor, was elected last week as head of the IPCC, which was established in 1988 and is often called upon to release comprehensive reports about the state of climate change science.

At his news conference, Lee also promised to push more developing countries to become more active in the IPCC process, calling it an essential part of its scientific reporting.