Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Tackling climate change to cost 1.6 percent of GDP: UN

This number is $270 Billion per year higher than Nick Stern's 1% of world GDP but still low. My best guess (and that is all anyone is doing) after following this stuff for fifteen years, is north of 2%.

From Agence France-Presse:

Climate change could have apocalyptic consequences for the world's poor and tackling it will require cuts in greenhouse gases costing 1.6 percent of global annual GDP, the UN Development Program said in a report Tuesday.

Entitled "The Struggle Against Climate Change," the UNDP report paints an alarming picture of the climate change problem and urges richer countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050, with cuts of 30 percent by 2020.

The proposed reductions in emissions are "stringent but affordable," the report said.

Between now and 2030, the average annual cost would amount to 1.6 percent of global GDP, said the report to be presented Tuesday at a ceremony attended by UNDP chief Kemal Dervis and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva....MORE