{"id":2283,"date":"2006-10-31T02:45:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-31T02:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2006\/10\/31\/what-will-climate-change-cost-us\/"},"modified":"2006-10-31T02:45:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-31T02:45:00","slug":"what-will-climate-change-cost-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/what-will-climate-change-cost-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What Will Climate Change Cost Us?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5685\/203\/1600\/stern.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/5685\/203\/320\/stern.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>&#8220;Taking the steps necessary to address global warming will slow down our economic growth.&#8221;  We&#8217;ve all heard a version of that one, right?  As it turns out, not only will addressing climate change produce <a href=\"http:\/\/sustainablog.blogspot.com\/2006\/10\/so-what-does-it-cost-to-save-planet.html\">a minimal drag on the economy<\/a>, but doing nothing could be much more expensive. The BBC (via the <a href=\"http:\/\/grist.org\/news\/daily\/2006\/10\/30\/\">Daily Grist<\/a>) <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/business\/6096084.stm\">reports<\/a> that a newly-released study by British economist Sir Nicholas Stern shows that failing to act against the climate crisis &#8220;&#8230;could shrink the global economy by 20%.&#8221; Taking action will cost&#8230; are you ready&#8230; 1%.  According to Stern, the economic drain of global warming would come from:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people<\/li>\n<li>Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world&#8217;s population<\/li>\n<li>Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct<\/li>\n<li>Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of &#8220;climate refugees&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown are backing the report, the first on climate change from an economist, and backed the idea that &#8220;1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately.&#8221;  Blair particularly labeled such expenditures an &#8220;investment,&#8221; claiming &#8220;For every \u00a31 invested now we can save \u00a35, or possibly more, by acting now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The climate change denial industry will have a tough time with this one &#8212; Stern&#8217;s a former chief economist of the World Bank, hardly a bunch of pinko commies.  I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;ll shift more towards criticizing the science, but that&#8217;s falling more and more on deaf ears.  The thing I really don&#8217;t get about the deniers: this is a tremendous opportunity, not only for preventing lots of death and destruction, but for making a lot of money.  The green sector is booming &#8212; I&#8217;m no economist, but I&#8217;m also not aware of any other business category growing by double digits. I really don&#8217;t see what&#8217;s not to like if you&#8217;re a conservative &#8212; there&#8217;s business to be done, folks.  Furthermore, it&#8217;s business in the very best spirit of capitalism &#8212; moving quickly and creatively to serve the community while making a profit.  Are these folks really not imaginative enough to recognize that lots of money can be made without drilling for oil, digging for coal or manufacturing oversized gas-guzzlers?  I have a real problem understanding how people who&#8217;ve made it to the top of such industries can&#8217;t see the possibilities here&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to see a more thorough overview of yesterday&#8217;s presentation of the report, it&#8217;s available from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk\/newsroom_and_speeches\/press\/2006\/press_stern_06.cfm\">British Treasury Department<\/a> (thanks, <a href=\"http:\/\/todbrilliant.com\/2006\/10\/30\/hm-treasury-on-climate-change-oct-30-release\/\">Tod<\/a>!).  If you want to read the report, it&#8217;s available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk\/Independent_Reviews\/stern_review_economics_climate_change\/sternreview_index.cfm\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Categories: <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/climatechange\" rel=\"tag\">climatechange<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/globalwarming\" rel=\"tag\">globalwarming<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/stern\" rel=\"tag\">stern<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/report\" rel=\"tag\">report<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/economics\" rel=\"tag\">economics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/tonyblair\" rel=\"tag\">tonyblair<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/gordonbrown\" rel=\"tag\">gordonbrown<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/london\" rel=\"tag\">london<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/del.icio.us\/jmcstras\/uk\" rel=\"tag\">uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Taking the steps necessary to address global warming will slow down our economic growth.&#8221; We&#8217;ve all heard a version of that one, right? As it turns out, not only will&nbsp;[ &hellip; ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":17193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What Will Climate Change Cost Us? &#8226; Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/what-will-climate-change-cost-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Will Climate Change Cost Us? &#8226; Sustainablog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Taking the steps necessary to address global warming will slow down our economic growth.&#8221; We&#8217;ve all heard a version of that one, right? 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