Economists ignoring threat of climate change says Royal Society

Economists need to play “a bigger and more constructive role in dealing with the threat of climate change” said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, the academy of sciences of the United Kingdom.

Before last week’s debate in the House of Lords on the economics of climate change, Rees criticized recent media articles on the economics of climate change.

“It is a sad fact that a lot of the economic commentary on climate change in the media has seriously downplayed current scientific knowledge, even suggesting that climate change is just another scare story, or that the challenges can be met merely by treating them as questions of domestic economics,” wrote Reeds. “Let us be clear: climate change is real and it is a global problem, as was emphasised last year in the joint statement by the national academies of science of the G8 nations plus Brazil, China and India.”

“Of course, there are uncertainties in our understanding of climate change, as there are across all areas of science. But the scientific evidence we have is compelling. Rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are warming our world, changing our climate and making our oceans more acidic. While not all of the impacts will be negative, the higher the greenhouse gas levels climb, the bigger the adverse impacts will become, and the more we will have to do to mitigate and adapt.”

Iceland. Photo by Tina Butler

This is a modified news release from The Royal Society

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