Posted on 10/30/2006 9:40:29 AM PST by NormsRevenge
LONDON – Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, a British government report said Monday, as the country launched a bid to convince doubters that environmentalism and economic growth can coincide.
Prime Minister Tony Blair said unabated climate change would eventually cost the world the equivalent of between 5 percent and 20 percent of global gross domestic product each year. He called for “bold and decisive action” to cut carbon emissions and stem the worst of the temperature rise.
“It is not in doubt that, if the science is right, the consequences for our planet are literally disastrous,” he said. “This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime.”
The report emphasized that global warming can only be fought with the cooperation of major countries such as the United States and China, and represents a huge contrast to the Bush administration's wait-and-see global warming policies.
Sir Nicholas Stern, the senior government economist who wrote the report, said that acting now to cut greenhouse gas emissions would cost about 1 percent of global GDP each year. He recommended a “low-carbon global economy” through measures including taxation, regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon trading.
“That is manageable,” he said. “We can grow and be green.”
President Bush kept America – by far the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming – out of the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, saying the pact would harm the U.S. economy. The international agreement was reached in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and expires in 2012.
Blair, Bush's top ally in the Iraq war, has indicated that Bush's policies on climate change are unacceptable.
The prime minister made that clear when he signed an agreement this year with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to develop new technologies to combat the problem. The measure imposed the first emissions cap in the United States on utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants in a bid to curb the gases that scientists blame for warming the Earth.
Treasury Chief Gordon Brown, who is expected to replace Blair as prime minister next year, announced Monday that former Vice President Al Gore, who has emerged as a powerful environmental spokesman, would advise the British government on climate change.
Blair and the report also said that no matter what Britain, the United States and Japan do, the battle against global warming cannot succeed without deciding when and how to control the greenhouse gas emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.
Stern's 700-page report said evidence showed “that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth.”
“Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century,” he said.
The report said at current trends average global temperatures will rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees within the next 50 years or so, and the earth will experience several degrees more of warming if emissions continue to grow.
It said such warming could have effects such as melting glaciers, rising sea levels, declining crop yields, drinking water shortages, higher death tolls from malnutrition and heat stress, and widespread outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever. Developing countries often would be the hardest hit.
The report acknowledged that its predictions regarding GDP relied on sparse data about high temperatures and developing countries, and placed monetary values on human health and the environment, “which is conceptually, ethically and empirically very difficult.”
Brown said Britain would lead the international effort against climate change, establishing “an economy that is both pro-growth and pro-green.” He called for Europe to cut its carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and 60 percent by 2050.
Under the 1997 Kyoto accord, 35 industrialized nations committed to reducing emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
But Britain is one of only a handful of industrialized nations whose greenhouse gas emissions have fallen in the last decade and a half, the United Nations said Monday.
The U.N. said Germany's emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990 and 2004, Britain's by 14 percent and France's by almost 1 percent.
Overall, there was a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41 industrialized nations from 2000 to 2004, mostly because former Soviet-bloc countries, whose emissions declined in their economic downturn of the 1990s, increased emissions during the recent four-year period by 4.1 percent.
The British government is considering new “green taxes” on cheap airline flights, fuel and high-emission vehicles.
GREENHOUSE GASES: Emissions in the atmosphere must be limited to between 450 and 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide. The current level is 430 parts per million of carbon dioxide. At the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, the carbon dioxide levels were at 280 parts per million.
DEFORESTATION: The loss of forests globally contributes to more carbon dioxide emissions each year than the transport sector. Studies to determine the best way to reduce deforestation must begin soon.
INTERNATIONAL AID: Climate change must be integrated into development policy. Rich countries must increase support for poor countries' development.
RECOMMENDATIONS: To effectively counteract climate change, the report suggests a common global price for carbon be created through taxation, emissions trading and regulation. It also suggests that government policies encourage the development of highly efficient products; and says funding for low-carbon technologies must increase fivefold.
Sir Nicholas Stern is a silly person.
Well, now at least they'll have a convenient excuse for their pending economic collapse. It should keep the heat off the socialists and Muslims.
The Headline they should be more concerned with:
Unchecked muslim immigration will devestate British economy
Hmmm........
Well, they can sugarcoat **** all they want, I'm not biting.
That's a pretty big IF, Sherlock.
Not to worry, I have a closet-full of 'high-water' trousers.
In a related story, scientists have confirmed that an attack from extraterrestrial aliens with greater technological powers would reduce the world's economy up to 40%.
We can certainly slow down the damage rate...but ultimately we're going to have to place limits on population size and development of virgin lands.
Those limits will not be placed peacefully. All human history, and most modern cultures, argue against it
I've been saving this one whale for years ... it's gone a bit smelly now.
Follow the money.
I suspect he works for the Ministry of Silly Walks.
Perhaps the Labour Party can turn the country over the the Muslims, who could slaughter the present population and let all the factories decay. That would cut down greatly on greenhouse gas emissions.
Proud_USA_Republican wrote: "Unchecked muslim immigration will devestate (sic) British economy."
If it's already not too late for them. Read Mark Steyn's new book. The Western nations are busy arguing over something that MIGHT raise the sea level a couple inches over the next century, while their civilizations collapse around them. Global warming won't be nearly as big an issue in the post-EU, Muslim era.
It is not in doubt that, if the Green Bay Packers win every game between now and the end of January, they will be Super Bowl champions.
But I wouldn't start planning the victory party just yet.
I will take the time to say that this government once again proves itself true to the loony left, no matter how hard Tory Bliar would like to disguise the fact.
Don't be so quick, as some of you seem to be, to disingenuously link this example of craziness with the issues of Islam. Furthermore, be careful about dismissing that particular threat as a British or European problem.
It is a global issue and the only people who are being helped by the fermenting of Anglo-American distrust 'pray' five times a day and would be delighted to have you do the same thing.
"Climate change must be integrated into development policy. Rich countries must increase support for poor countries' development."
First we are told that the developed nations are responsible for warming due to industrialization. Now we are told we must help undeveloped countries become more developed. A more consistent argument would be to freeze development in China and India at current levels, or better yet, push them back 30 years.
If an asteroid hits kyoto japan we will have to have another accord, not to mention it will kill all of the dinosaurs in Korea. If the science is right. I will also win the Lottery twice by then if the math is right.
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