Costing climate change

With the world still polarized between nations working to combat the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and those resistant to the idea, the UK commissioned a survey of the potential costs of ignoring possible changes. Sir Nicholas Stern, an economist within the British government's treasury, reported last month on his assessment of the challenge of climate change. He warns that it could cost more than $5 trillion unless the issue is addressed within the next decade. The UK is to use this warning of irreversible climate change and the potential for the biggest economic slump since the 1930s, outlined in the Stern review, to press for a new global deal to curb carbon emissions. The British government is urgently pushing ahead on the issue because the existing Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012, and there is no binding agreement to extend it. The government is seeking the outline of a package with the G8 industrial nations and five leading developing nations by next year, or 2008 at the latest. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, will lobby the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to put the need for international cooperation on climate change at the heart of Germany's G8 presidency when it begins in January. The British chancellor of the exchequer, Gordon Brown, will also be pushing for a radical News focus An effort to put a cost to the inaction on curbing emissions of greenhouse gases has spurred Britain to push for a new global climate deal by 2008. rethink of the United Nations and the World Bank which, he believes, are not equipped to oversee a carbon trading scheme, including the principles on which carbon emission allocations would be handed out to individual countries. It is thought Blair wanted a framework that included a target for stabilizing carbon dioxide emissions, a global investment fund for new green technologies and action to stop deforestation. The agreement sought would include three countries that were not part of the Kyoto protocol — the US, China and India. Launching the review into the economics of climate change by Stern, Blair said: " Without radical measures to reduce carbon emissions within the next 10–15 years, there is compelling evidence to suggest we might lose Wrecking: Results of major weather events such as hurricane Katrina, shown here, cause massive economic damage but climate change could see such bills soar, prompting new calls for a global …