The price tag of a climate catastrophe

How much is it worth to save the world?

Today, Monday October 30, Sir Nicholas Stern will deliver a report much talked about already, to the British Government. It is 700 pages thorough analysis of how much it will cost the world to have a climate catastrophe and how much it will cost to avoid it. There have been some intentional leaks already since the government has had the chance of a sneak peek, end of last week. The message in figures is simple. The cost for saving the world is 1% of the GDP. The cost of not doing it is 15-20 times higher. Or in plain language:" Business as usual will derail growth".

Sir David King, who is the scientific adviser to the same government, outlined that the actions to avoid the catastrophe may even have a positive effect on the world economy, which explains the low costs and gives hope that they may be even lower.

No doubt we will here more about this because the report also concludes that the time-scale for action is S-H-O-R-T and that many of the actions absolutely require concerted actions as regards measures and technologies. Action of a sort that the letter from the two prime ministers Jan Peter Balkenende and Tony Blair to the EU-chair last week hinted about.