Cost to beat global warming "quite modest"
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Humans need to make sweeping cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in 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 (3.6 F) 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 after marathon talks that ran over their four-day schedule to finalise the document.
""It's a great report and ... shows that it's economically and technically feasible to make deep emission reductions sufficient to limit warming to 2 degrees," he said, calling the costs "quite modest".
To keep within the 2-degree limit that scientists and the European Union say is needed to stave off disastrous climate changes, emissions of carbon dioxide need to fall 50 to 85 percent by 2050, the report said.
However, technological advances -- particularly in more efficient energy use and production -- meant such targets were within reach, the report said.
It stressed 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.
A U.S. environmental official noted the broad range of options detailed in the report and rejected those that came at a high cost to the economy. Continued...
Irish anger at bank bailout
A winter of discontent is in store, as the Irish fume at a bailout plan which they say is way too generous to the banks who lent so freely when the "Celtic Tiger" was roaring. Full Article
Climate Chage: It's affordable
