{"id":1104,"date":"2011-10-05T05:03:21","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T05:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2011-11-20T19:43:37","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T19:43:37","slug":"cost-of-climate-change-to-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/2011\/10\/cost-of-climate-change-to-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost of Climate Change to Increase!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By: Christine Burns &#8217;14<\/p>\n<p>There is a lot of uncertainty in the general public about climate change.\u00a0 Many people feel that mitigation efforts will cost too much, and that we should worry about it later.\u00a0 The Stern executive summary suggests otherwise. Stern clearly states that it is in our best interest economically to address climate change sooner rather than later.\u00a0\u00a0 The Stern review agrees that it will cost money upfront to address climate change, but the costs that will incur should we continue with business as usual will be far greater.\u00a0 Here are a few of the costly effects of climate change that Stern points out:<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/files\/2011\/10\/Unknown.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1105\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/files\/2011\/10\/Unknown.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"202\" height=\"159\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.geology.wisc.edu\/courses\/g115\/2ndCredit\/Projects04\/GlaciersWarming\/christense\/Page6.html\" target=\"_blank\">Glacial melt <\/a>will lead to less drinking water and sea level rise, which in turn will lead to more coastal flooding, loss of large tracts of land, and displacement of people.<\/li>\n<li>More extreme weather events<\/li>\n<li>Less\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/05\/05\/food-prices-global-warming-study_n_858192.html\" target=\"_blank\">food<\/a>\u00a0productivity<\/li>\n<li>Rise in malnutrition and spread of vector born diseases<\/li>\n<li>Ecosystem disruption<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Add to those the increased risk of irreversible climate change should we wait, and the cost of investing now is looking more appealing.\u00a0 The second crucial point Stern makes is that the most heavily effected people will be those in developing countries who will not have the means to adapt<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly enough, just as the developed countries do not want to give up their luxurious lifestyles, many of the developing countries are more interested in being able to continue developing than surviving 50 or 100 years from now.\u00a0 Countries are even less willing to pay for expensive climate change mitigation in light of the recent economic downfall.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/12429431\" target=\"_blank\"> The EU who has been relatively successful at meeting its Kyoto goals<\/a>, was actually considering pushing climate change to the back burner at the beginning of the recession. For this very reason mitigation strategies need to be put in place ASAP! \u00a0Stern refers to climate change as, \u201cthe greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.\u201d This suggest to me that we can only expect further recession as resources become more scarce and more money has to be focused on victim relief instead of technological development.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, Stern claims that if we act now, then we can mitigate climate change at a lesser cost to us.\u00a0 He even provides three suggestions that if enacted together should result in mitigation and long run economic success.\u00a0 He says that carbon pricing (either tax or trade) is the first key to mitigation.\u00a0 Next, he says the revenue from carbon pricing should be invested in sustainable technology development, and reducing the cost of purchasing sustainable technology so that it can compete with fossil fuels. Finally, he says a concerted effort needs to be made to remove social barriers that prevent sustainability in everyday life. The most important one being education, but also through regulation such as minimum building requirements, and labeling best practice products so that consumers can make an informed decision.\u00a0 Overall, climate change mitigation needs to start now, the longer we wait the more costly and difficult it will be and the more damaging the consequences economically and environmentally.<\/p>\n<p>Works Cited:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Stern, N. 2007. Executive Summary. In: <em>The Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change<\/em>. HM Treasury, London, UK.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Charlemagne: Bad times Ahead | The Economist.&#8221;\u00a0<em>The Economist &#8211; World News, Politics, Economics, Business &amp; Finance<\/em>. 16 Oct. 2008. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. &lt;http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/12429431&gt;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Christine Burns &#8217;14<br \/>\nThere is a lot of uncertainty in the general public about climate change.\u00a0 Many people feel that mitigation efforts will cost too much, and that we should worry about it later.\u00a0 The Stern executive summary suggests otherwise. Stern clearly states that it is in our best interest economically to address climate change sooner rather than later.\u00a0\u00a0 The Stern review agrees that it will cost money upfront to address climate change, but the costs that will incur should we continue with business as usual will be far greater.\u00a0 Here are a few of the costly effects of climate change that Stern points out:<\/p>\n<p>Glacial melt will lead to less drinking water and sea level rise, which in turn will lead to more coastal flooding, loss of large tracts of land, and displacement of people.<br \/>\nMore extreme weather events<br \/>\nLess\u00a0food\u00a0productivity<br \/>\nRise in malnutrition and spread of vector born diseases<br \/>\nEcosystem disruption<\/p>\n<p>Add to those the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":840,"featured_media":1105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19448,40557,1625],"tags":[34237,42308,2520,1567,40508,42306,42307,42309],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-change-2","category-consumption","category-weather","tag-christine-burns","tag-climate-action-now","tag-developed-countries","tag-developing-countries","tag-economic-viability-of-climate-change","tag-economy","tag-effects-of-climate-change","tag-social-barriers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/cop17durban\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}