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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Land Shark who wrote (12304)	5/4/2007 1:23:20 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

Beating global warming need not cost the earth: U.N. By David Fogarty 29 minutes ago Humans need to make sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years to keep global warming in check, but it need only cost a tiny fraction of world economic output, a major U.N. climate report said on Friday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in the third of a series of reports, said keeping the rise in temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius would cost only 0.12 percent of annual gross domestic product. "It's a low premium to pay to reduce the risk of major climate damage," Bill Hare, a Greenpeace adviser who co-authored the report, told Reuters at the end of marathon talks that ran over their four-day schedule to finalize the document. "It's a great report and it's very strong and it shows that it's economically and technically feasible to make deep emission reductions sufficient to limit warming to 2 degrees," he said. "It shows that the costs of doing this are quite modest." To keep within the 2-degree threshold that scientists and the European Union say is needed to stave off disastrous changes to the world's climate, emissions of carbon dioxide needed to drop between 50 and 85 percent by 2050, the report said. However, technological advances -- particularly in producing and using energy more efficiently -- meant such targets were within reach, the report said. It highlighted the use of nuclear, solar and wind power, more energy-efficient buildings and lighting, as well as capturing and storing carbon dioxide spewed from coal-fired power stations and oil and gas rigs. China, expected to overtake the United States as the world's biggest greenhouse gas producer soon, said rich countries must not keep clean energy technologies to themselves. "It is something the developing countries have been asking for many years, but up till now it has not happened," said Zhou Dadi, director of China's Energy Research Institute and a co-author of the report. The panel also said for the first time that lifestyle changes could help fight global warming. It gave no examples, but IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said his personal suggestions included turning down the thermostat and eating less red meat, which could cut animal methane emissions. "These are lifestyle measures but you are not going to give up anything and you might gain," he told a news conference. "ACT NOW" The report, agreed by scientists and officials from more than 100 countries, reviews the latest science on the costs and ways to curb emissions growth. It is designed as a blueprint for governments to act, without telling them exactly what to do. However, the message was clear -- the ball was now in government courts and delays were no longer acceptable. "There is no excuse for waiting," European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said. Pachauri said high public interest would spur governments to act. In some cases, the panel said, technology could bring major benefits, such as cutting health costs by tackling pollution. Even changing planting times for rice or managing cattle and sheep flocks better could cut emissions of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, said the report by the U.N. panel, which draws on the work of 2,500 scientists. Its previous two reports this year painted a grim future of human-induced global warming causing more hunger, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels which would drown low-lying islands. Asia's population is most at risk from rising sea levels and more powerful storms. One in 10 people, mainly in Asia, live in highly vulnerable coastal areas, an international study published last month found. In Bangkok, China and Europe sparred about the costs and levels of greenhouse gas emissions that ought to be allowed. China wanted the IPCC report to exclude language which would promote stabilizing emissions near current levels, in part because of the limited economic studies available. The steeper the emissions cuts, the more costly to the global economy, the report said. The cost of limiting greenhouse gases in 2030 to "stabilization" levels of between 445 and 710 ppm (parts per million) CO2-equivalent ranges from a 3 percent decrease of global GDP to a small increase, it said. However, regional costs might differ significantly from global averages, it added. Greenhouse gas concentrations are now at about 430 ppm CO2-equivalent.