“NEGLIGIBLE”. That’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the cost of limiting long-term global warming would be. “We won’t notice it,” says Simon Retallack, head of climate change at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a UK-based think tank.
The IPCC’s latest report, released on 4 May, says that if stringent measures are taken now to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at between 445 and 535 parts per million (ppm) by 2030, global economic growth will slow by only 0.12 per cent per year. This would mean a total cost of 3 per cent of global GDP. However, James Connaughton of President Bush’s White House…
