U.K. Report: Warming Will Damage Economy

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, arrives with Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown for the release of the Stern report on climate change at the Royal Society in London, Monday Oct. 30, 2006. The report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior government economist, reviews the likely impact of climate change, and warns that rising temperatures could cut economic growth by as much as one-fifth. (AP Photo / Kieran Doherty, Pool) (Kieran Doherty - AP)

Vicki Arroyo, director of policy analysis at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Va., praised the report for trying to measure the cost of action and inaction against global warming. The report focused on the economic impact of climate change, and did not deal with any new scientific analysis,

"Economic assessments are inexact sciences, but they are used all the time in setting insurance rates and government regulation of highway safety, pollution control and food safety. They are projections of what the risks are and the benefits of averting those risks."

Blair signed an agreement this year with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to develop technologies to combat the problem. The measure imposed the first emissions cap in the United States on utilities, refineries and manufacturing plants in a bid to curb the gases that scientists blame for warming the Earth.

The Stern report praised states such as California for developing their own objectives and policy frameworks regarding the battle against global warming.

At a news conference, Stern said U.S. cooperation is vital, and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she would advise the Bush administration that climate change is an "urgent issue that has to be tackled."

But Blair and the report also said that no matter what Britain, the United States and Japan do, the battle cannot succeed without deciding when and how to control greenhouse gas emissions by such fast-industrializing giants as China and India.

"Britain is more than playing its part. But it is 2 percent of worldwide emissions. Close down all, all of Britain's emissions and in less than two years just the growth in China's emissions would wipe out the difference," Blair said.

The Stern report said at current trends, average global temperatures will rise by 3.6 degrees to 5.4 degrees within the next 50 years or so, and the Earth will experience several degrees more of warming if emissions continue to grow.

It said such warming can have severe impact, including melting glaciers, rising sea levels, declining crop yields, drinking water shortages, higher death tolls from malnutrition and heat stress, and widespread outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever. Developing countries often would be the hardest hit.

Many major cities could be at risk of flooding from coastal surges, including New York, Miami, London, Tokyo, Shanghai and Buenos Aires, the study said.

Stern's report said "ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth."

"Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," it said.