Another report has highlighted evidence of the serious, long-term consequences of global warming. Yet governments continue to pay only lip service to the threat. As the new study makes clear, the cost of environmental destruction will be severe -- but there is still time to avoid the worst impacts, if the world takes immediate and cooperative action.
The latest warning is from former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, who was tasked by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer with providing an independent assessment of the economics of climate change. His conclusions are striking and simple. First, "the scientific evidence points to increasing risks of serious, irreversible impacts from climate change associated with business-as-usual paths for emissions."
The current level of greenhouse gases is nearly twice the level that existed before the Industrial Revolution, and the annual emissions rate is accelerating. As a result, there is at least a 77 percent chance -- "and perhaps up to a 99 percent chance" -- of a global average temperature rise exceeding 2 C. There is at least a 50 percent risk that temperature change will exceed 5 C.