stop making sense, dammit!
Can't seem to face up to the facts!
The Guardian UK, via Sam Smith:
The world would have to give up only one year's economic growth over the next four decades to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to stave off the threat of global warming, a report says today.
Consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers offer a "green growth plus" strategy, combining energy efficiency, greater use of renewables and carbon capture to cut emissions by 60% by 2050 from the level reached by doing nothing. Nuclear energy, it says, can play a role, but it is not crucial.
This scenario, which involves little real sacrifice in terms of economic growth, could be achieved only if embarked upon without delay, the report warns.
"If countries adopt a 'business as usual' approach, the result could be a more than doubling of global carbon emissions by 2050," said John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics at PwC.
"Our analysis suggests that there are technologically feasible and relatively low cost options for controlling carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Estimates suggest that the level of GDP might be reduced by no more than 2-3% in 2050 if this strategy is followed."
PwC envisages the Group of Seven leading economies taking the initiative, cutting their emissions by about half by 2050, while the fast-growing E7 countries - China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey - could still increase their emissions by 30% over the period.
Wait - do what now?
"The president has said continually said that one of reasons he doesn't like a mandated cap is because it has the potential to move jobs overseas and hurt the economy," said Kristin Hellmer, spokeswoman for James Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Ah. I see. The economy. Don't want Americans to fall behind. Solid, well-organized and well-thought out fiscal policy should never take a back seat to risky experiments like capping carbon emissions or something, right?
One of the world's most exclusive business clubs warned the United States Tuesday that its open-ended national security and war expenditures, along with tax cuts that led to large budget deficits, could affect the country's status as a powerful economic force.
The Geneva-based World Economic Forum issued its 2006-07 Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) rankings and listed the United States in sixth place, down from the top spot, behind Switzerland, Finland and Sweden and just ahead of Japan.
The top 10 countries are all rich industrialised nations. They are Switzerland, Finland Sweden, Denmark, Singapore, the United States, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain.
The report says that with potentially even higher spending commitments in defence and homeland security, which comes with the U.S. war on terror and ongoing plans to lower taxes further, the U.S. faces difficult fiscal balancing.
"With a low savings rate, record-high current account deficits and a worsening of the U.S.'s net debtor position, there is a non-negligible risk to both the country's overall competitiveness and, given the relative size of the U.S. economy, the future of the global economy," said Augusto Lopez-Claros, chief economist of the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Network.
The report says that the United States faces major institutional challenges because the quality of the country's public institutions fares worse than those of other rich nations in terms of transparency and efficiency, especially after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina last year.
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