Globalwarming : a 5,500 billion dollars danger
An article from a french magazineThe expert elected by Tony Blair to estimate the cost of the reheating of planet threw yesterday a paving stone in the pond. If nothing is done, the phenomenon will devastate the world economy and will create more than 200 million refugees.
THERE WILL BE before and after the Stern report/ratio. Admittedly, to sir Nicholas Stern, former economist in chief of the World Bank and owner of very independent and respected Stern Review, is not the first expert to be considered the effects of the reheating of planet. It is not either the only one to anticipate serious economic and human consequences if the States do not take the problem with arm-the-body. But, it is the first time that a high level economist, as listened and respected as Nicholas Stern in Great Britain (and not a scientist) figure also precisely the danger and does not hesitate to use very alarmist terms to give the measurement of this announced catastrophe. “If nothing is done, the total reheating will devastate the world economy with the same height as the two world wars and the crisis of 1929”, alarm the economist, with a will hardly hidden to create an electric shock in Great Britain and beyond, and not to be simply one énième prophet in the desert. Presenting yesterday morning impressing it work of investigation and futurology, 600 pages carried out with its team for one year, in front of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the Minister for the Economy, Nicholas Stern has predicted, if nothing is done, a “very serious deceleration” of the world economy, with a cost estimated at more than 5.500 billion euros. The extinction of 40% of the animal species To fight against the spiral of the rise of the temperatures, the countries should devote 1% of the world GDP per annum, that is to say 275 billion euros. But if one continues thus, the phenomenon will result in a load representing between 5 and 20 times this amount ! Another consequence, more dramatic still, according to the report/ratio Stern, the rise of the level of water of the oceans, caused by the cast iron of the ice-barrier and the glaciers, will throw more than 200 million Land on the roads and will cause the extinction of 40% of the animal species. However, Nicholas Stern was optimistic yesterday, “because we have time and money to act”. The international community, but especially China, India and the United States, has to mobilize itself to dam up the climatic reheating. Another teaching of the report/ratio Stern, the answer must world and be concerted, because if Great Britain alone immediately stopped the totality of its gas discharges for purpose of greenhouse, it would take only thirteen months for China to compensate for them with the current growth of its economic activity. The rich countries will have to help the poor countries which will be “the first and touched hard”, affirmed to sir Nicholas. “It is right that the rich countries pay a little more” that their quota of 1% of GDP. Their action must be also made through partnerships, as in the Amazonian forest, because world deforestation creates more emissions that the industry of transport. Even if the rich countries take on them to decrease their rejections from 60% to 80% from here at 2050, the developing countries must also put the shoulder to the wheel. But it will be necessary to help there. “The climatic change is the greatest threat of the market economy which the world ever knew”, Nicholas Stern prevents, for whom three large axes of action assert itself : firstly, to tax the emissions with carbon dioxide, secondly, to generalize technologies with weak carbon emission, and, finally, to dismantle the obstacles with the improvement of the energetic efficiencies, to inform, educate and convince the private individuals of the measures to be taken individually to fight against the phenomenon. To pass at the higher speed For the expert, the international community must absolutely cease tergiversating. Stern encourages the European Union, California and China which started ambitious policies. He greets also Convention tallies of the United Nations on the climatic change and the protocol of Kyoto, without insisting on his lack of effectiveness. “No country, so large is it, cannot solve with him only the problem. It is imperative to reach a long-term consensus on the common objectives, and to build the international framework which will make it possible each one to give its full measurement”. But it insists : “it is necessary to now pass at the higher speed (...) Retarder the action, even decade or two, would involve us on a dangerous territory”. Once is not habit, this work of economist was greeted as of yesterday by several ONG. WWF appreciated “the call to the alarm clock addressed to the leaders”. Oxfam underlined “the feeling desperate urgently report/ratio”. The ball is now in the camp of controlling which must convince the taxpayers and the industrialists of the urgency to make efforts.