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rich leave poor to sink as climate costs set to rise says new briefing
the cost of adapting to climate change is set to rise and is being hidden from the general public in rich countries. while poor countries, who will suffer the impacts of climate change first and worst, are being fatally short changed, as industrialised nations abdicate responsibility for a problem they are overwhelmingly responsible for creating.
As the latest round of climate change talks get underway in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the new briefing, Cast Adrift, by nef (the new economics foundation) published in association with Greenpeace International, indicates the rising scale of the cost of adapting to climate change.
Cast adrift draws together a range of data to show that developed nations are set to spend billions to foot their own bill for climate change, but paradoxically subsidise their own, heavily polluting fossil fuel industries by at least $73 billion per year, according to the last available figures. By contrast, rich countries have committed to providing a paltry $0.41 billion in additional funds to help poor countries adapt to the problem, and to date only a fraction of this has been made available.
Cast adrift illustrates the scale of adaptation costs in rich countries including the costs associated with increased insurance liability and business risk, additional building and construction costs, early warning systems, sea and river defences, health, water, agriculture, legal adaptation and tourism. The briefing reveals that:
- Estimates show that the construction costs of protecting the part of the EU coastline that is already eroding, could range from $6 to $32 billion
- In the OECD, additional annual construction costs for adaptation to climate change are estimated at between $14 and $73 billion
- In 2003, a single summer heat wave in France resulted in an additional $748 million pledged to adapt failing hospital emergency services, almost twice what has been committed by all rich countries to adaptation for the majority world. Latest research published in Nature magazine shows that such heat waves are set to become the norm in Europe by the middle of this century.
- Compared to the $0.41 billion resource pledge for all countries, the US Global Change Resource Centre estimates that protecting the populated coastline of Tanzania alone a one-metre sea level rise would cost $14.6 billion.
- The Association of British Insurers predict that the cost of weather insurance claims in an ‘extreme’ year in the UK alone, will have more than quadrupled to over £50 billion by 2050.
The figures drawn together in Cast adrift, could be the tip of the Iceberg. The former head of one of the world’s largest insurance companies has already forecast that by about 2065, the cost of natural disasters mostly related to climate-driven events would exceed gross world income, bankrupting the global economy
Given rich nations historical responsibility for global warming, and the resources at their disposal, at the very least the funds available for adaptation to the majority world should be raised substantially. nef believes that:
- an initial assessment of the cost of adaptation on the best available predictions for various scenarios of warming is urgently needed, and that:
- in the mean time, rich nations should at the very least devote as much funding to assisting poor countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change as they do subsidising industry to fuel it – currently $73 billion each year.
“Like befuddled firemen, the world’s richest nations are set to hold back the flames of global warming with one hand while pouring oil on the fire with the other. The law of the sea dictates that able ships should always respond to an SOS, but on top of double standards in domestic policy rich countries are also abandoning the rest of the world, who are being cast adrift to cope with a warming world” said Andrew Simms, nef Policy Director
“This report is a stark reminder to governments at the climate talks of the millions at risk from climate change and the overwhelming costs in both human and economic terms of failing to act. There is no excuse for delay”, said Steve Sawyer, Climate policy advisor for Greenpeace International.
Click HERE to read the report in full
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