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  PlanetArk 30 Oct 06
No Climate Action May Spark Economic Crisis - Report

BBC 27 Oct 06
Global warming 'threat to growth'

Yahoo News 26 Oct 06
Climate change may trigger global recession, report to warn

LONDON (AFP) - Climate change may have an adverse impact on the global economy in the long run and lead to the worst global recession in recent history, a report to be released next week will reportedly warn.

Citing comments made by David King, the British government's chief scientific adviser, The Guardian reported that the report by Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, will argue that fighting global warming will save industrialized nations money.

"All of (Stern's) detailed modelling out to the year 2100 is going to indicate first of all that if we don't take global action we are going to see a massive downturn in global economies," King was quoted as saying.

"If no action is taken we will be faced with the kind of downturn that has not been seen since the great depression and the two world wars."

Stern's "analysis, I think, will also surprise many people in terms of the relatively small cost of action," King said.

The contents of Stern's report, commissioned by the British finance ministry and due for release on Monday, have been kept secret since being revealed to the world's environment ministers at a conference in Mexico earlier this month.

"The massive investment programme that's ahead of us is an opportunity for us to move towards a zero carbon energy system. The investment process is going to act quite possible in the opposite direction to an economic downturn," he said.

BBC 27 Oct 06
Global warming 'threat to growth'

Global warming could cut the world's annual economic output by as much as 20%, an influential report by Sir Nicholas Stern is expected to say.

While that is a worst case scenario, the report claims that at the very best the cost of tackling global warming would be 1% of annual economic output.

Sir Nicholas's comments are expected to form the core of The Stern Review that is due to be released on Monday.

It is important because it looks at economic, not environmental, arguments.

Wide audience

According to BBC business correspondent Hugh Pym, the report will carry weight because Sir Nicholas, a former World Bank economist, is seen as a neutral figure.

Unlike earlier reports, his conclusions are likely to be seen as objective and based on cold, hard economic fact, our correspondent said. It also may help win over sceptics in the US, where climate change has often been accused of being based on shoddy science.

Sir Nicholas has looked at the impact of global warming on economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), until 2100. His report was commissioned by the Cabinet Office and the Treasury in July 2005 and was aimed at better understanding the economic challenges presented by global warming and how they could be met in the UK and around the world.

Sir Nicholas's approach has not been without its critics, however.

Many experts argue that climate change is beyond human control and the best way to tackle it is to drive forward economic growth so that development picks up pace and nations will be rich enough to pay for adaptation in the future.

Analysts said that they expect the Stern Review to argue that economists have under-estimated the costs that climate change will impose and over-estimated the costs of cutting emissions.

PlanetArk 30 Oct 06
No Climate Action May Spark Economic Crisis - Report

LONDON - Ignoring climate change could lead to economic upheaval on the scale of the 1930s Depression, underlining the need for urgent action to combat global warming, a British report on the costs of climate change said.

The report by chief British government economist Nicholas Stern, a 27-page summary of which was obtained by Reuters, says the benefits of determined worldwide steps to tackle climate change would greatly outweigh the costs.

The 700-page report, to be published on Monday, said that no matter what we do now the chance "is already almost out of reach" to keep greenhouse gases at a level which scientists say should avoid the worst effects of climate change.

It said the world does not have to choose between tackling climate change and economic growth, contradicting US President George W. Bush who pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol against global warming in part because he said it would cost jobs.

"The evidence gathered by the review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs," said the report, prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and finance minister Gordon Brown.

"Our actions over the coming few 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," it said.

It precedes UN climate talks, starting in Nairobi on Nov. 6, focusing on finding a successor to Kyoto which ends in 2012. Blair is pushing for a post-Kyoto framework that would include the United States -- the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases that cause climate change -- as well as major developing countries such as China and India.

Kyoto obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases -- which come mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars -- by some 5 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-12. Many Kyoto nations are above target.

POOR WILL SUFFER MOST

Stern said that, on current trends, average global temperatures will rise by 2-3 degrees centigrade within the next 50 years or so, compared with temperatures in 1750-1850. If emissions continue to grow, the earth could warm by several more degrees, with severe consequences that would hit poor countries most, the former World Bank chief economist said.

Melting glaciers would initially increase flood risk and then reduce water supplies, eventually threatening one-sixth of the world's population, mainly in the Indian sub-continent, parts of China and the South American Andes, he said.

Declining crop yields, especially in Africa, could leave hundreds of millions unable to produce or buy enough food, he said. Rising sea levels could result in tens to hundreds of millions more people flooded each year.

The report estimates stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will cost about 1 percent of annual global output by 2050. But if the world does nothing, it could cut global consumption per person by between five and 20 percent.

Stern called for a coordinated international approach to combat climate change, saying the effort must be shared fairly by rich and poor. He suggested rich nations take responsibility for emissions cuts of 60-80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.

Countering global warming would bring new opportunities to industry, he said, estimating the market for low-carbon energy products could be worth at least US$500 billion a year by 2050.

He advocated a doubling of worldwide public spending on research and development into low-carbon technologies and a sharp increase in incentives to encourage people to use them.

Stern said a global carbon price was needed, affixing a clear cost to pollution, and this could be created through tax, trading or regulation.
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