U.K. politicians embrace climate-change concerns
Economists urge international action.
A new report on climate change by the U.K. government’s chief economist has been greeted as a political watershed, with Britain’s most senior politicians accepting publicly that climate change is likely to cause massive economic damage and upset.
The report’s main conclusion is that the cost of tackling climate change would be only 1% of global GDP by 2050 but that the cost of business as usual would be far more. It warns that inaction could cause a worldwide recession as damaging as the 1930s Depression but stresses that cutting carbon emissions must be a global effort.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is to send the report’s author, Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist, to the U.S. early next year to urge politicians and industry to take action now.
