Hermit
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Global Warming and your pocket.
« on: 2006-10-30 07:33:43 » |
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Warming 'could bring 1930s havoc'
Source: CNN
Authors: Not Credited ("Associated Press contributed to this report")
Dated: 2006-10-30
Climate change will devastate the global economy on a scale of the two world wars and the depression of the 1930s if left unchecked, a top economist has warned.
Introducing a report by Nicholas Stern that it commissioned, the British government also said Monday that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who is now a vocal environmental advocate, is to serve as an adviser on the issue.
The report's main argument is that the benefits of coordinated action around the world to tackle global warming will greatly outweigh any financial costs.
But Stern, a former World Bank economist, who wrote the report, concludes that ignoring climate change could lead to huge economic upheaval.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said if no action was taken, climate change could cost the world up to 20 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) each year.
Blair said: "This is the most important report on the future published by this government in its time in office."
The prospect of global warming is "frightening," but the scientific case that it is taking place is now "overwhelming," the PM added.
"What is not in doubt is that the scientific evidence of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions is now overwhelming.
"It is not in doubt that if the science is right, the consequences for our planet are literally disastrous."
"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime.
"Unless we act now ... these consequences, disastrous as they are, will be irreversible.
"There is nothing more serious, more urgent, more demanding of leadership -- here, of course, but most importantly in the global community."
Finance minister Gordon Brown, who is expected to take over as prime minister next year, said harnessing markets was the best way to find new methods to cut polluting gases.
Brown proposed an EU-wide target for emissions reductions of 30 percent by 2020 and 60 percent by 2050 and expansion of the carbon trading scheme to cover over half of emissions.
"Stern's report sees climate change as a global challenge that demands a global solution. The truth is we must tackle climate change internationally or we will not tackle it at all," Brown said.
The global community should aim to stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere at around 450-550 parts per million, he said.[Hermit: If we stopped producing Methane and CO2 tomorrow, then this would be the likely "stabilization level" due to increased off-gassing of previously sequestered Methane and CO2 coupled with reduced plant up-take at CO2 levels only slightly higher than is currently the case. After that the problem will likely be self-regulating as we will probably not be around to exacerbate it.]
On current trends, he said, average global temperatures will rise by 2-3 degrees centigrade within 50 years, compared with temperatures in 1750-1850.
And if emissions continue to grow, poor countries would be hardest hit. Melting glaciers initially increase flood risk and then reduce water supplies -- eventually threatening one-sixth of the world's population.
U.S. President George W. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol -- which calls on the 35 richest countries to cut carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars -- in part because he said it hit jobs.
But Stern said the action needed to avert the worst effects of climate change was "manageable," adding: "We can grow and be green."
The Stern review says the costs of action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change can be limited to just 1 percent of global GDP each year.
People would pay slightly more for carbon intensive goods, but the world's economies could continue to grow strongly. [Hermit: It could well be better than this, but that requires vision I think is missing and unlikely to be found as the world collapses about us. World grain supply reserves are now down to between 50 and 60 days of consumption. At 2000 use levels (i.e. not taking ethanol production demand into account). And in 2000 the reserves were around 300 days, but the collapse of aquifers in North America and Southern Asia, together with weather changes is not good news for grain producers.]
UK opposition leader David Cameron, who has worked hard to boost his party's environmental credentials, mocked Brown's interest in global warming.
He said in a television interview on Sunday: "Ask yourself, would Gordon Brown be spending as much time on the environment as he is now if I hadn't raised the issue so strongly over the last year?
"I think the answer to that is pretty clear."
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