A new report from the Global Development and Environmental Institute ("GDAE") at Tufts University, commissioned by Friends of the Earth: England, Wales and Northern Ireland, calculates the cost of climate inaction at US$74 trillion by the end of the century, with devastating impacts on less developed nations and a legacy of massive social and health problems for the grandchildren of today's young adults. Due to the inherent momentum of the climate system, deferred response may be too late to prevent passing a "tipping point" leading to catastrophic and irreversable heating that would render large areas of the globe uninhabitable.
From the Executive Summary:
"This report examines the costs of inaction – the worsening damages that will result from allowing climate change to continue unabated. Economic models have estimated damages as great as US$74 trillion, but even these numbers fail to convey the multiple harms that lie in store for the world. In brief, we find that the first 2° of warming will have many harmful and costly impacts, outweighing the modest potential benefits, for northern countries such as the United Kingdom. Most developing countries will fare even worse, experiencing greater costs and no benefits at all. The first stages of warming already have begun to put essential ecosystems at risk, and will strain the ability of the world's economies and governments to respond.
Beyond 2°, in the second half of this century and later, the effects of further warming – which will certainly occur in the absence of ambitious mitigation efforts – will be much more dangerous, as all potential benefits vanish and all regions suffer steadily increasing harms. The risk of a global catastrophe will increase rapidly as temperatures continue to rise. If nothing is done to slow the process of warming, the grandchildren of today's young adults will inherit a world crippled by food and water shortages, extreme and variable weather, extinctions and other ecosystem damages, and a growing danger of an even more severe catastrophe.
The climate system, and our economic activities that affect it, have enormous momentum. It is not possible to wait until the world begins to get uncomfortably warm, and then suddenly decide to stop. Because of its momentum, a supertanker has to turn off its engines 25 km before it comes to a stop. Likewise, we have to achieve a drastic reduction in carbon emissions several decades before we can bring climate change under control. In other words, we have to take action long before we experience the full severity of the problem. The world as a whole can, just barely, cope with the impacts of the first 2° of warming, but only if there are immediate, large-scale, and creative approaches to international equity and cooperation. The challenge will be to understand the near term damages from climate change as a sign of much worse to come if nothing is done to stop it, while interpreting any limited benefits of the early stages of warming as a temporary windfall, soon to disappear."
Climate Change - Costs of Inaction - Global Development and Environment Institute - Tufts University (October 11, 2006)
Posted by dougsimpson at October 17, 2006 07:13 PM