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The consensus was that communicable diseases, sanitation and water, malnutrition and hunger, and education were all higher priorities than climate change.

Climate change has the potential to directly influence affect all of these except education. Vector-borne diseases are affected by the ecological distribution of the vector, particularly insects or rodents. (Hantavirus outbreaks are tied to regional climate, especially precipitation.) Sanitation and water are affected by water supply, and in many areas mountain glaciers, which are diminishing, are a significant water supply. Malnutrition and hunger are related to food supply, and climate change has the potential to shift where crops grow and how well crops do in different regions (see what's happening in Australia right now!).

So if there was $50 billion to spend, most of it should be spent on improving the current situation, and some of it should be spent on long-term planning.

And that doesn't include the cost of moving to carbon-free power from fossil fuels, or the financial "incentives"--i.e., global subsidies from Western taxpayers--that China and India would need if the Stern report's policies were to have any chance of being implemented.

So we should donate to the economies that are taking our jobs and are responsible for obscene trade deficits? Maybe they could donate a portion of their trade surpluses to the cause?

This Stern report seems to be pure eco-porn.

It is beginning to look as if the Globalist One Worlders who want a smaller population here on Earth are trying to take funds from important problems that could save lives today and redistribute these funds to potential problems that might save lives in the future. The short term result of this action will be numerous deaths due to continued disease and pestilence in the third world. That appears to be their main goal, conspiratorially speaking.

The over arching pessimism of these ecological compendia is misleading because the observations of "over 2000 scientists" are touted by the report compilers as some consensus, while,in reality, they are discreet in nature. That alone puts the scientific tenor of the claims into the realm of political and philosophical spin. A cosmopolitan "earth first" perspective necessarliy puts national,economic,and human interests in arrears at the outset of the discussion. Human activity and propsperity, the very notion of "property" are relegated to the immaterial. The religiosity assumed by eco-zealots is used to trump any talk of "trade-offs" versus "solutions" of the utopian variety. A classic example of past "solutions" would be the nearly universal ban on DDT in reaction to Carson's "Silent Spring" without any thought to the catastrophic cost in increased malarial mortality. Of course there are many more such examples that illustrate the mindset of central planners and their assumption of omniscience. The hubris of many "Greens" lies in that very condescension and is a sad misuse of ecological consciousness. These are the so-called "Watermelons"...green on the outside, but obviously "Red" collectivists under the skin.

“That may not be a “horrible consequence”, but it will have societal implications, even in the United States (ever hear of the Colorado River?)”

The states served by Colorado river water are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona and California. They continually fight over apportionment of said water.

I wonder how much water 12 - 20 million illegal aliens use?
Or conversely, how much water would we save if that number of illegal users were not here?