Time to take global warming threat seriously

THE latest report on global warming by the former chief economist of the World Bank Nicholas Stern paints the most dramatic picture yet of the fate awaiting the globe unless we tackle global warming.

To put things right the world needs to spend €300 million a year from here on in to ensure its and our survival.

If we don’t move fast the cost of cleaning up the mess could reach a staggering €5.5 trillion. By then much of the damage will be irretrievable.

Essentially the Stern Report is saying nothing new, but it has quantified the cost and says taxes on airlines and on big consumers of all forms of fuel will have to be increased.

Those attempting to dismiss this report as the work of a crank should know the Pentagon issued a highly worrying review on the global warming issue that was highly alarming, given the general perception the US is in denial over this issue.

One caveat has to be entered and it is the strongest card from sceptics who contend climate change has been a phenomenon since time began and that we are simply witnessing another shift in the global temperature that is as sequential and as normal as night following day.

Here are some of the arguments, which suggest we have to take Stern seriously.

Carbon Dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas and before the Industrial Revolution carbon levels stood at 280 parts per million (ppm) by volume. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere today is 382ppm.

If unchecked greenhouse gases could raise global temperature by 6C by the end of this century. An increase of 2C could wipe out 40% of the earth’s species while 200 million would be put at risk of being driven from their homes.

Across Africa and the Middle East 35% of their total crop output would be wiped out if temperatures rose by half that figure.

Up to 200m people would be exposed to starvation if temperatures rise 2C rising to 550m if the temperature goes up by 3C.

Stern pointed out that 35,000 Europeans died in a heat wave in 2003, an event that becomes commonplace if we keep damaging that atmosphere at current rates.

Britain is taking this question seriously. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has already enlisted the former American vice-president Al Gore to lobby President Bush, who rejected Kyoto, to wake up to what we are doing to the planet.

Gore’s film on the issue has been widely praised as a serious contribution to the debate also.

Already British newspapers are highlighting one massive contradiction in Britain’s own stance on this massive dilemma facing us all and it is this.

By 2030 the government has asked its airports to drive up passenger numbers from 200m to 470m in an effort to tackle traffic congestion on the roads.

If those targets are met, the airline sector would account for up to 23% of carbon emissions in Britain, a huge increase from its current level of 3%.

And that’s the huge dilemma in all of this. Every bit of consumption, every step up in the standard of living for poorer countries and every extra house built in this country consumes fossil fuels that add to the CO2 count.

How many of you leave the tap running while cleaning your teeth?

Stern makes no mention of water, but former UN secretary general Boutrous Boutrous-Gali said that diminishing resource will be the cause of the next serious war.

This is a huge dilemma for us all and practically every aspiration from the poorest to the richest person on this globe is in conflict with the Stern Report’s ambition of trying to prevent the earth from being slowly barbecued.