Economist Predicts Greenhouse Gas Consequences

Flood. Famine. Death. Destruction. It's not the last chapter of a popular holy book, but it is a revelation coming from a notoriously buttoned down source. Former head economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, recently modeled the above events on scientists' predictions for global warming and came to staggering results.

According to the report, a minimum of 1% of the current global economy must be turned towards curbing greenhouse gasses. If the funds are not utilized the world will see 20% of its current gross domestic product amputated due to unstoppable cataclysmic events.

"The consequences for our planet are literally disastrous," Prime Minister Tony Blair said speaking on the report. "This disaster is not set to happen in some science-fiction future, many years ahead, but in our lifetime."

Blair referred to the consequences as, "disastrous" and "irreversible" if there is a failure to act.

A recent article by the New York Times speculated that the emphasis on the report, "seems aimed at the few industrial nations, including the United States, that have refused to join initiatives like the Kyoto Protocol."

The Kyoto Protocol covers 160 nations that have agreed reduce 55% of the world's greenhouse gases. The United States has repeatedly refused to join. Bush dubbed the treaty "unrealistic" due to its economic impact on US citizens. However, the recent report states that reduced emissions now could save the world economy up to $2.5 trillion in the future.

According to the 700-page report submitted by Stern global temperatures could rise as much as 37 degrees Fahrenheit, which would impact crop production and expose hundreds of millions to starvation. Approximately one-sixth of the world's population could face events such as drought and floods.

Despite a global scientific community that has grown increasingly vocal over the last three decades, green house gas emissions have grown 11% in the last 14 years from industrialized nations.

Though Britain is responsible for 2% of global emissions it has taken center stage in the fight to curb global warming. "Close down 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.

China, currently the second highest producer of greenhouse gasses, imported 90 million tons of oil in 2003. Since 2002 car ownership has increased 30 percent. In the same year it produced 3000 million tons of carbon dioxide.

If warming increases unchecked developed nations are expected to be the hardest hit. Currently 80% of the world's energy supply comes from fossil fuels. Stern said that a "low-carbon global economy" is possible using government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, taxation and carbon trading.

Greenhouse gas emissions have fallen in Britain by 14 percent in the last 14 years. It is one of the only developed nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in that time span.