The risk of runaway climate change can be avoided without seriously denting global economic growth, scientists forecast in the most comprehensive report on global warming yet published.
Huge cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, bringing them nearly to zero by the end of this century, need not derail growth says the study by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s leading authority on global warming.
Without such deep reductions, there is a danger of more frequent and intense extreme weather, along with rising sea levels and other impacts of a changing climate, the report says. This will add costs that “cannot even be quantified”, said panel chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, at the launch of the study in Copenhagen yesterday.