UK warns: Climate change could cause a worldwide recession
Obi Once
Posts: 918
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1934886,00.html
UK signs Gore to sell climate case in US
Britain is to send the author of today's landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions - as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.
Sir Nicholas Stern, who this morning publishes an authoritative report on climate change warning that inaction could cause a worldwide recession as damaging as the Depression of the 1930s, will lobby politicians and business people in America at the turn of the year.
In a separate development, the environment secretary, David Miliband, said the government was discussing imposing green taxes. But the Treasury, which commissioned Sir Nicholas's study, stressed: "The key message of Stern is that international action is required ... The chancellor decides on taxes and he will do so in the pre-budget report and budget."
The government hopes the review will gain traction in the US because it focuses on the economic case for change. Sir Nicholas's analysis warns that doing nothing about climate change will cost the global economy between 5% and 20% of GDP, while reducing emissions now would cost 1%, equivalent to £184bn.
He argues that international negotiations to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol on reducing greenhouse gases must be accelerated, starting at UN talks in Nairobi next month.
The prime minister has said any such agreement needs the support of the US, which refused to join Kyoto because it said it would harm the economy. The White House said last night that it had not read the report. But Kristin Hellmer, the White House counsel on environmental quality, said: "The president has said from the beginning that climate change is a serious issue, and he is taking action on it."
She disputed charges from scientists that the administration had been hostile to the concept of global warming, and that it had set back international efforts to limit greenhouse gases by rejecting the Kyoto treaty.
Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US group, suggested the only prospect for a policy shift before the next presidential election in 2008 would be if a delegation from the vast majority of US business - including the coal, utilities and car manufacturing industries - lobbied the White House for action. But he added of today's review: "It is a benchmark in a long process that is going to continue after the release."
Jonathan Porritt, director of the government's independent watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, added: "I think it is on a par with the influence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the way in which the scientific evidence that they have marshalled has bit by bit obliged politicians to get into a much more pro-action stance on climate change."
Hopes of a political consensus on green taxes were raised yesterday as David Cameron, the Tory leader, told the BBC he would be prepared to impose taxes on aviation. His remarks followed the publication of a leaked memo from Mr Miliband urging Mr Brown to consider tough levies on flights, motoring and inefficient household appliances.
UK signs Gore to sell climate case in US
Britain is to send the author of today's landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions - as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.
Sir Nicholas Stern, who this morning publishes an authoritative report on climate change warning that inaction could cause a worldwide recession as damaging as the Depression of the 1930s, will lobby politicians and business people in America at the turn of the year.
In a separate development, the environment secretary, David Miliband, said the government was discussing imposing green taxes. But the Treasury, which commissioned Sir Nicholas's study, stressed: "The key message of Stern is that international action is required ... The chancellor decides on taxes and he will do so in the pre-budget report and budget."
The government hopes the review will gain traction in the US because it focuses on the economic case for change. Sir Nicholas's analysis warns that doing nothing about climate change will cost the global economy between 5% and 20% of GDP, while reducing emissions now would cost 1%, equivalent to £184bn.
He argues that international negotiations to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol on reducing greenhouse gases must be accelerated, starting at UN talks in Nairobi next month.
The prime minister has said any such agreement needs the support of the US, which refused to join Kyoto because it said it would harm the economy. The White House said last night that it had not read the report. But Kristin Hellmer, the White House counsel on environmental quality, said: "The president has said from the beginning that climate change is a serious issue, and he is taking action on it."
She disputed charges from scientists that the administration had been hostile to the concept of global warming, and that it had set back international efforts to limit greenhouse gases by rejecting the Kyoto treaty.
Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US group, suggested the only prospect for a policy shift before the next presidential election in 2008 would be if a delegation from the vast majority of US business - including the coal, utilities and car manufacturing industries - lobbied the White House for action. But he added of today's review: "It is a benchmark in a long process that is going to continue after the release."
Jonathan Porritt, director of the government's independent watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission, added: "I think it is on a par with the influence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the way in which the scientific evidence that they have marshalled has bit by bit obliged politicians to get into a much more pro-action stance on climate change."
Hopes of a political consensus on green taxes were raised yesterday as David Cameron, the Tory leader, told the BBC he would be prepared to impose taxes on aviation. His remarks followed the publication of a leaked memo from Mr Miliband urging Mr Brown to consider tough levies on flights, motoring and inefficient household appliances.
your light's reflected now
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http://www.myspace.com/thelastreel http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19604327965
it's hek of nice to be on a same thread for you at last....my firned and i have been following global warming via the Guardian and we have been finding some really sad, but enlightening, or provoking articles. thank you for keeping a conscious level up....
see ya, mi friend...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6080074.stm
a derivitive of nature.
nature is god
god is love
love is light
*****
In July, environmental organizations petitioned the World Heritage Committee to sanction big polluters for harming reefs in Belize and Australia and speeding the melting of glacier parks in Nepal, Peru and the Rockies.
The United States fought the measure and the U.N. body put off labeling the sites as endangered, a title usually reserved for monuments threatened by wars.
*****
and this is the problem with the current model ... we put the prosperity of corporations above everything ... and also why world groups like the UN are failures if some countries dictate policy ...
Polaris makes a good point about the UN. It has again shown it is completely ineffective and a waste of both time and money.
Changes need to be made. As always consumers have the power but people keep pushing a government legislated solution. Business and consumers hold the key to battling climate change.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
So is murder.
And how will "Joe Average" learn such a lesson from taxation?
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
True enough, but it is also true that if environmental costs would added to the price of every product...making it more of a true cost...people would buy very differently (I know I would), the environment would be improved, and those products that are environmentally friendly would prosper.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Agree. And I think it's a good, effective way to do that. Of course, the contraversy comes when determining the environmental costof products, especially improted products where you might not have all the info you need. I gues syou could require certain info before allowing a product into the States.
This would make a large segment of the population pretty pissed off though, and it would also hurt the poor the most of course.
I couldnt agree more. Very well put.
See, everyone deos it, on every issue.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
anyways - for the most part (for sure i could do better), i do base my consumer decisions on the environmental and social costs ... i hear what many of you guys are saying but to be honest ... if it really mattered to folks - they would find out that info on their own ...
we have to look at practical solutions - no company is ever gonna charge the "true cost" for their product unless some regulatory board forces them too ... its as simple as that ... profit and answering to shareholders drives the economic model not sustainability or environmental neutrality ...
1) it is fear mongering to claim the collapse of the economy due to global warming...it's always been fear mongering on every issue...
2) I never said a company would charge 'true cost' without some regulation.
A side-benefit of charging the true cost, would be that products shipped from far away would have a significantly higher enviro-cost...making local goods more competitive. Would be a very interesting model to see.
Good for you. I don't do this nearly enough.
That being said, you hit the nail on the head...'if it really mattered'...it doesn't. So you have ot figure out a way to make it very easy and accessible to understand the facts. It's even okay to display the potential outcomes if you point them all out, but mainly the facts.
But all he's learned is that you've made car A cost more than car B.
If you want the consumer to learn that car A costs more than car B because of gas consumption, make consumer pay for the gas. And he already does that. What scares you is that he doesn't care. And that's why you should realize that your taxes aren't going to change anything.
well ... i guess if we take the literal meaning of the words - sure, but to me cutting back on civil liberties because of terrorists is not the same as reducing carbon emissions because of climate change ... but that is just my bias ...
this is like the conversation i had with my mom ... she was raving about this scarf she bought for a few bucks (can't remember exactly) she was saying that they sell for way more ... and i said - well, if you pay someone 5 cents a day (exaggerating) then u can sell it for $9 ... if u bought something made in canada - you're also paying for someone to live a certain standard of living ... she didn't really appreciate it but wtf ... this is what i keep talking about ... until we start making decisions that benefit the whole versus just the us ... we won't get anywhere ...
Haha...you crack me up...it's more comparable to the government adding costs (taxes) to products because of climate change...either way, the individual is sacrificing something for the greater good.
And surferdude the $50 water is not based on a tax, but on the idea that drinkable / sweet (does that translate correct?) water will run out in time as the temparature rises.
Unless of course he cares about something more than gas consumption in a car.
Hehe....how nice of you. Isn't that like saying that the state that only sanctions torture is "doubling the bonus" of the state that kills its citizens indiscriminately?
You can either embrace choice or you may attack it, but you cannot do both. If you don't like the choices people are making you may simply force them onto your path by destroying their ability to choose. But then please don't complain about people making bad choices in the future. You gave up that right when you decided that people didn't need to learn how to choose.
By Colin Brown and Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 31 October 2006
Climate change has been made the world's biggest priority, with the publication of a stark report showing that the planet faces catastrophe unless urgent measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Future generations may come to regard the apocalyptic report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, as the turning point in combating global warming, or as the missed opportunity.
As well as producing a catastrophic vision of hundreds of millions fleeing flooding and drought, Sir Nicholas suggests that the cost of inaction could be a permanent loss of 20 per cent of global output.
That equates to a figure of £3.68 trillion - while to act quickly would cost the equivalent of £184bn annually, 1 per cent of world GDP.
Across the world, environmental groups hailed the report as the beginning of a new era on climate change, but the White House maintained an ominous silence. However, the report laid down a challenge to the US, and other major emerging economies including China and India, that British ministers said cannot be ignored.
Its recommendations are based on stabilising carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at between 450 and 550 parts per million - which would still require a cut of at least 25 per cent in global emissions, rising to 60 per cent for the wealthy nations.
It accepts that even with a very strong expansion of renewable energy sources, fossil fuels could still account for more than half of global energy supplies by 2050.
Presenting the findings in London, Tony Blair said the 700-page document was the "most important report on the future" published by his Government. Green campaigners said that at last the world had woken up to the dangers they had been warning about for years.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and likely next Prime Minister, assumed the task of leading the world in persuading the sceptics in the US, China and India to accept the need for global co-operation to avert the threat of a global catastrophe. He has enlisted Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned green evangelist, to sell the message in the United States, with Sir Nicholas.
While the Bush administration refused to be drawn on the report, US environmental groups seized on it to demand a major change in policy. "The President needs to stop hiding behind his opposition to the Kyoto protocol and lay a new position on the table," said the National Environmental Trust, in Washington. The Washington Post said in an editorial that it was "hard to imagine" that the "intransigence" of the administration would long survive its tenure. "Will [Mr Bush] take a hand in developing America's response to this global problem," it asked, "Or will he go down as the President who fiddled while Greenland melted?"
Sir Nicholas's report contained little that was scientifically new. But British ministers are hoping his hard-headed economic analysis will be enough to persuade the doubters in the White House to curb America's profligate use of carbon energy.
In the Commons, Environment Secretary, David Miliband, confirmed that ministers were drawing up a Climate Change Bill, which would enshrine in law the Government's long-term target of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. But he declined to go into any detail.
Mr Blair said the consequences for the planet of inaction were "literally disastrous".
"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime," he said. "We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further [than Kyoto]."
Sir Nicholas told BBC radio: "Unless it's international, we will not make the reductions on the scale which will be required."
Pia Hansen, of the European Commission, said the report "clearly makes a case for action".
"Climate change is not a problem Europe can afford to put into the 'too difficult' pile," she said. "It is not an option to wait and see, and we must act now."
Charlie Kronick, of Greenpeace, said the report was "the final piece in the jigsaw" in the case for action to reduce emissions. "There are no more excuses left, no more smokescreens to hide behind, now everybody has to back action to slash emissions, regardless of party or ideology," he said.
The CBI director general Richard Lambert said a global system of emissions trading was now urgently needed as a "nucleus" for effective action. "Provided we act with sufficient speed, we will not have to make a choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and investment."
Climate change has been made the world's biggest priority, with the publication of a stark report showing that the planet faces catastrophe unless urgent measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Future generations may come to regard the apocalyptic report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, as the turning point in combating global warming, or as the missed opportunity.
As well as producing a catastrophic vision of hundreds of millions fleeing flooding and drought, Sir Nicholas suggests that the cost of inaction could be a permanent loss of 20 per cent of global output.
That equates to a figure of £3.68 trillion - while to act quickly would cost the equivalent of £184bn annually, 1 per cent of world GDP.
Across the world, environmental groups hailed the report as the beginning of a new era on climate change, but the White House maintained an ominous silence. However, the report laid down a challenge to the US, and other major emerging economies including China and India, that British ministers said cannot be ignored.
Its recommendations are based on stabilising carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere at between 450 and 550 parts per million - which would still require a cut of at least 25 per cent in global emissions, rising to 60 per cent for the wealthy nations.
It accepts that even with a very strong expansion of renewable energy sources, fossil fuels could still account for more than half of global energy supplies by 2050.
Presenting the findings in London, Tony Blair said the 700-page document was the "most important report on the future" published by his Government. Green campaigners said that at last the world had woken up to the dangers they had been warning about for years.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and likely next Prime Minister, assumed the task of leading the world in persuading the sceptics in the US, China and India to accept the need for global co-operation to avert the threat of a global catastrophe. He has enlisted Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned green evangelist, to sell the message in the United States, with Sir Nicholas.
While the Bush administration refused to be drawn on the report, US environmental groups seized on it to demand a major change in policy. "The President needs to stop hiding behind his opposition to the Kyoto protocol and lay a new position on the table," said the National Environmental Trust, in Washington. The Washington Post said in an editorial that it was "hard to imagine" that the "intransigence" of the administration would long survive its tenure. "Will [Mr Bush] take a hand in developing America's response to this global problem," it asked, "Or will he go down as the President who fiddled while Greenland melted?"
Sir Nicholas's report contained little that was scientifically new. But British ministers are hoping his hard-headed economic analysis will be enough to persuade the doubters in the White House to curb America's profligate use of carbon energy.
In the Commons, Environment Secretary, David Miliband, confirmed that ministers were drawing up a Climate Change Bill, which would enshrine in law the Government's long-term target of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. But he declined to go into any detail.
Mr Blair said the consequences for the planet of inaction were "literally disastrous".
"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime," he said. "We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further [than Kyoto]."
Sir Nicholas told BBC radio: "Unless it's international, we will not make the reductions on the scale which will be required."
Pia Hansen, of the European Commission, said the report "clearly makes a case for action".
"Climate change is not a problem Europe can afford to put into the 'too difficult' pile," she said. "It is not an option to wait and see, and we must act now."
Charlie Kronick, of Greenpeace, said the report was "the final piece in the jigsaw" in the case for action to reduce emissions. "There are no more excuses left, no more smokescreens to hide behind, now everybody has to back action to slash emissions, regardless of party or ideology," he said.
The CBI director general Richard Lambert said a global system of emissions trading was now urgently needed as a "nucleus" for effective action. "Provided we act with sufficient speed, we will not have to make a choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and investment."
Published: 31 October 2006
What is the Stern report, and what's so special about it?
It is the first really comprehensive review of the economics of climate change. For nearly 20 years it has been the science of climate change that has made all the headlines, as the world gradually realised that the continuing accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was causing global temperatures to rise remorselessly. We have heard about disappearing glaciers, catastrophic floods and fatal heatwaves, and we have heard of dire predictions of worse to come in the future. We've heard a thousand calls to action, to stop global warming happening. But what would that cost the world? And what would doing nothing cost us? Hitherto, no one had any real idea. But now Sir Nicholas Stern and his team have come up with concrete numbers.
Does the report have a key conclusion?
Yes. That although dealing with global warming by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases will cost a lot of money - about 1 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, trillions of dollars - doing nothing about it will cost the world an awful lot more, anything from five to 20 times more. We face losing up to a fifth of the world's wealth from unmitigated climate change, says the review - if unchecked, it will devastate the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the 20th century's world wars.
Why is that conclusion important?
Crucially, because the world's leading climate change sceptics, which comprise the Republican business community in the United States and the Bush administration which so faithfully reflects their views, are against acting to prevent climate change by cutting carbon emissions on the grounds that to do so would damage the US economy. And as the Americans, who have 4 per cent of the world's population, produce nearly a quarter of all the world's greenhouse gases, any effort to fight climate change without them is doomed to failure. The Stern Review says, quite simply, that not acting is actually the much more expensive option. The US will be hit as much as anywhere else.
Will the American sceptics listen to that?
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Jubilation T Cornpone from the Republican National Committee are not going to go down on their knees and admit they were wrong, no. Or at least, not overnight. But the report cannot but have a very widespread and steadily growing influence, partly because of its scope and detail - it is 600 pages long and feels like a doorstep - and also because Sir Nicholas Stern is an immensely prestigious figure. He is not only the head of the Government Economic Service in the UK, he is a former chief economist of the World Bank in Washington. He is an economist, not an environmentalist.
What else does the report tell us that's important?
Another absolutely vital conclusion is that dealing with climate change, even though very costly, need not derail worldwide economic growth. The report stresses that the two are compatible. Major action to mitigate emissions, it says, is "fully consistent with continued growth and development". This will be very welcome to business, and to developmentalists, who for example see growth as Africa's only hope of escaping from poverty. But it will seem counter-intuitive to some more radical environmentalists, who have long contended that the world's remorseless pursuit of ever more riches cannot go hand in hand with solving the world's greatest environmental problem. The "deep greens" feel the way forward is for a different type of economic system based on sufficiency rather than growth. But politicians will be the most relieved of all at the Stern conclusion - Mr Blair made this quite clear yesterday. Where dealing with climate is concerned, the thrust of the Stern Review is this: out goes sackcloth and ashes, in comes having your cake and eating it (as long as you take the problem seriously, now).
It was all over the news here as well, discussed as a FACT!!!
and I was thinking:
wow, since 5 years I am calling out for attention, doing all to reduce my personal food print.
since 3 years I am writing my opinion down here, at this place,
trying to spread more attention.
and FINALLY it is taken as a fact and all over the media,
all over, just, at least here in Europe.
so thanks UK, that was a good job to reach even the big world....
finally Mr. Blair
...the world is come undone, I like to change it everyday but change don't come at once, it's a wave, building before it breaks.