The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation: Policies and Options for Global Action Beyond 2012

Description :

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">       The global climate is changing, and the release of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activityhas contributed to global warming. While there is significant uncertainty about the costs of inaction, it isgenerally agreed that failing to tackle climate change will have significant implications for the worldeconomy, especially in developing countries, where reduced agricultural yields, sea level rise, extremeweather events and the greater prevalence of some infectious diseases are likely to be particularlydisruptive (OECD, 2008a). Furthermore, there are significant risks of unpredictable, potentially large andirreversible, damage worldwide. The exact economic and welfare costs of policy inaction could equate toas much as a permanent 14.4% loss in average world consumption per capita (Stern, 2007), when bothmarket and non-market impacts are included.