p No economic reason to delay climate action - global commission LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Acting to curb climate change makes economic sense, even before counting the benefits of lower risks from climate threats, an upcoming report by leading financial, business and political officials will say. But that action must happen soon, or the world will be locked into dangerous levels of climate change that will disrupt economies and lives for decades or centuries to come, the report will warn. “The next 15 years are absolutely critical,” said Jeremy Oppenheim, programme director for the New Climate Economy project of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, chaired by former Mexican president Felipe Calderon. “People always tend to make the case for urgency … But the science in this case, leaving all rhetoric aside, makes it extraordinarily clear we have a 15-year window to change the underlying current premise,” he said. The commission, established last year, has been studying whether acting to keep global temperature rise to relatively safe levels would help or hurt the world’s economies. Members of its council include former heads of state, ex-finance ministers from countries like Indonesia and South Africa, former heads of many major development banks, including China’s, corporate leaders from businesses such as Unisys, and trade union officials. ‘GOOD ECONOMIC SENSE’ The group’s report, due out in September, will make the case that “it is possible to deliver between 50 and 90 percent of the emissions cuts required to get onto what could be described as the ‘2-degree path’…with measures that make good economic sense for countries and cities even before taking into account the benefits of decreased climate risk,” Oppenheim told a World Health Organization conference on health and climate change in Geneva this week. More in the link.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 19:22:02 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015