Act now or face the worst of Global Warming: Report

International debate on global warming intensified during the weekend when highlights of a report on Global warming showed that the climate change will cost the world economy as much as $7-trillion in lost output and could make as many as 200 million people homeless due to flood or drought.

The report prepared by the World Bank's former chief economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, is considered as unique and significant as this is the first time any economist has contributed to the international debate on global warming, until now only scientists have contributed to the issue.

Commissioned by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, the report urges the governments worldwide to take the drastic actions to curb the future worst possibilities.

In his report Stern said that if countries do not act instantly they would see the economic downturn greater than the combined cost of the two world wars and the Great Depression, a worldwide economic slump which started in 1929 and lasting through most of the 1930s. The figure Stern depicted in his report represents a fifth of the global economy.

Though, the recent study by the economist is considered as the significant contribution to the international debate on global warming, but it is sure the study will face the criticism from climate-change skeptics. Former British cabinet minister, Nigel Lawson and eight other British economists have already described the Stern study as “a misdirected exercise.”

The 700-page report, which took 16 months to complete and is due to be officially announced on Monday, suggests the world needs to spend 1 per cent of global domestic product (GDP), roughly what is spent worldwide on advertising, and half what the World Bank estimates would be the cost of a full-blown flu pandemic, to deal with climate change. Inability to act the same would force the world to witness the drop of 5 to 20 per cent of GDP as well as environmental and social disruption.

“Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century,” Stern wrote.

The eminent economist also warned that the developing nations are at higher risk of getting struck and the developed countries have a responsibility to help them get in line with new circumstances.

Britain's Environment Secretary, David Milband, said that until now the debate on global climate change has been dominated by moral and scientific arguments. “Now it is being joined on economic grounds.”

“It is very significant that the economics revealed by Sir Nicholas Stern's report should be that the longer we wait, and certainly the longer we wait beyond the 10 to 15-year timeframe that is set by the scientists, the more costly it will be,” he added. “But of course,” Milliband further said, “the 'we' is not just the United Kingdom, we are 2 per cent of global emissions. Obviously it's vital that the major emitters like the United States, and the growing economies like China and India are also part of the solution.”

The British government is reportedly taking some meaningful steps to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, including a carbon tax, and higher gasoline taxes. "We are heading towards catastrophic tipping points in our climate unless we act," Prime Minister Tony Blair said in an article published Monday.

Meanwhile, Treasury chief Gordon Brown is due to declare today that Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, who has won worldwide acclaim for his film, An Inconvenient Truth, on the dangers of global warming, has agreed to become his international adviser on climate change.

The release of the report will come one week before the start of the latest round of talks on the Kyoto Protocol, the first international pact demanding reductions in heat-trapping emissions.