Andrew C Revkin | October 30

NYT - A report commissioned by the British government and scheduled for release Monday calls for substantial international cooperation to combat global warming and doubling public spending on research into low-carbon technologies.

The main findings of the 16-month study, led by Sir Nicholas Stern, the chief of Britain’s economic service, were described over the weekend in several British news reports. The Reuters news agency quoted the report’s 27-page summary as saying, “The evidence gathered by the review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.”

The report, prepared for Tony Blair, the prime minister, and Gordon Brown, the finance minister, has been heavily promoted by Britain and environmental groups as one of the most authoritative reviews of climate costs, although some economists and energy experts at anti-regulatory research groups saw it as understating the cost of an accelerated transition away from the fossil fuels that provide nearly 90 percent of the world’s energy today.

The report, called the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, will be published online at sternreview.org.uk.

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From the Report's introduction (PDF):

Climate change presents a unique challenge for economics: it is the greatest example of market failure we have seen. The economic analysis must be global, deal with long time horizons, have the economics of risk and uncertainty at its core, and examine the possibility of major, non-marginal change. Analysing climate change requires ideas and techniques from most of the important areas of economics, including many recent advances.

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The Independent today has: "Almost too late' to stop a global catastrophe"
By Andy McSmith, The Independent, 30 October 2006

The possibility of avoiding a global catastrophe is "already almost out of reach", Sir Nicholas Stern's long-awaited report on climate change will warn today. One terrifying prospect is that changes in weather patterns could drive down the output of the world's economies by an amount equivalent to up to £6 trillion a year by 2050, almost the entire output of the EU.

With world temperatures on course to rise by two to three degrees in 50 years, rainfall could be catastrophically reduced in some of the world's poorest countries, while others grapple with floods from melting glaciers. The result could be the largest migration of refugees in history.

These problems will be "difficult or impossible to reverse" unless the world acts quickly, Sir Nicholas will warn, in a 700-page report that is expected to transform world attitudes to climate change. It adds: "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."

But the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and Environment Secretary, David Miliband, will emphasise the positive message accompanying Sir Nicholas's stark warnings, because the report will also say that the world already has the means to avert catastrophe on this scale, although it will involve the huge expense of 1 per cent of global GDP (£0.3trn).

"The second half of his message is that the technology does exist, the financing, public and private, does exist, and the international mechanisms also exist to get to grips with this problem - so I don't think it's a catastrophe that he puts forward. It's a challenging message," Mr Miliband said.

Also: Climate report demands action, says Blair
By Andrew Woodcock, Gavin Cordon and Amanda Brown, PA, The Independent, 30 October 2006

The consequences for the world if global warming continues unchecked will be "disastrous", Tony Blair warned today.

The Prime Minister was speaking as the Government launched the report of Sir Nicholas Stern's review of the likely impact of climate change, which warns that rising temperatures could cut economic growth by as much as one-fifth.

The report, which argues that taking action could cost 1% of global GDP, is thought likely to pave the way to large increases in green taxes.

Speaking at the report's launch in London, Mr Blair said: "This is the most important report on the future published by this Government in its time in office."

The prospect of global warming is "frightening", but the scientific case that it is taking place is now "overwhelming", said the Prime Minister.

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The Guardian has a series of articles: UK signs Gore to sell climate case in US
Washington sceptical as landmark report warns of economic disaster
James Randerson and Tania Branigan, The Guardian, Monday October 30, 2006

Britain is to send the author of today's landmark review on global warming to try to win American hearts and minds to the urgent cause of cutting carbon emissions - as it emerged yesterday that the government has already signed up former US vice-president Al Gore to advise on the environment.

Sir Nicholas Stern, who this morning publishes an authoritative report on climate change warning that inaction could cause a worldwide recession as damaging as the Depression of the 1930s, will lobby politicians and business people in America at the turn of the year.

In a separate development, the environment secretary, David Miliband, said the government was discussing imposing green taxes. But the Treasury, which commissioned Sir Nicholas's study, stressed: "The key message of Stern is that international action is required ... The chancellor decides on taxes and he will do so in the pre-budget report and budget."

The government hopes the review will gain traction in the US because it focuses on the economic case for change. Sir Nicholas's analysis warns that doing nothing about climate change will cost the global economy between 5% and 20% of GDP, while reducing emissions now would cost 1%, equivalent to £184bn.

Sceptics scorn climate report prediction of global chaos
James Randerson, science correspondent, The Guardian, Monday October 30, 2006

Even before the government's comprehensive report on the global economic impact of climate change is published later today, rightwing commentators and bloggers on both sides of the Atlantic have already begun rubbishing its contents.

The Stern review, which was commissioned by the Treasury and carried out by the former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern, is expected to say that the world economy faces an economic downturn comparable to the great depression of the 1930s if it fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But it is already easy to find a foretaste of the debate that is sure to accompany Sir Nicholas's US tour to present his report to political and business leaders there.

Under the headline Bad Climate Science Yields Worse Economics, Stephen Milloy, who is a scholar with the rightwing thinktank the Cato Institute, wrote on his "junkscience" blog: "The British government is preparing to fire a new round of global warming alarmism at the US next week." The piece, which also appears on the Fox News website, dismisses the study as "[Al] Gore's junk science shaping Stern's junk economics".

Miliband urges higher cost of motoring
Tania Branigan, political correspondent, The Guardian, Monday October 30, 2006

The government should curb environmentally damaging behaviour by raising the cost of motoring, especially in high emission cars, and increasing the price of flights, David Miliband has urged.

The environment secretary set out detailed proposals for green taxes in a letter to the chancellor, Gordon Brown, this month. The leaked memo warned that more had to be done to tackle climate change. "Market-based instruments, including taxes, need to play a substantial role," he said.

Mr Miliband suggested levies on inefficient goods and cheap flights, a boost to landfill tax to three times its current level, petrol price controls, road pricing, and a rise in road tax for the most polluting vehicles.

Downing Street and Treasury sources both played down the memo, obtained by the Mail on Sunday, arguing that the point of the Stern review was to focus on global initiatives. A senior backbencher warned that Labour needed to take the issue more seriously. But another said: "My feeling is the Treasury are not unhappy with this [memo]. I think it's testing what the public make of [the ideas]."

Rich nations urged to act as continent faces food crisis
Ashley Seagar, The Guardian, Monday October 30, 2006

Climate change is already affecting many parts of Africa and will get worse if the global community does not commit itself immediately to combat that change, a campaign group coalition said yesterday. A new report, Africa - Up in Smoke 2, which updates previous research carried out by Oxfam and the New Economics Foundation, comes as Sir Nicholas Stern publishes his Treasury-sponsored review urging radical change in the world's approach to carbon emissions.

The Oxfam/NEF report is also designed to warn of the specific threat to Africa ahead of next month's conference on climate change in Nairobi, Kenya. Temperatures in Africa have already risen by 0.5°C in comparison with 100 years ago, putting additional strain on water resources. According to the UK's Hadley Centre, temperature increases over many areas of Africa will be double the global average; drought patterns as a result will worsen catastrophically, says the report, which was compiled in conjunction with the Working Group on Climate Change and Development, a coalition of non-governmental organisations. It describes climate change as an "unprecedented threat to food security" and says what is needed is a "climate-proof" model of development as well as huge cuts in emissions. Africa's problem, though, is that it is the world's poorest continent, and lacks the resources to solve its problems by itself.

The coalition calls for rich countries to make good on their Kyoto promises and go beyond them. It also calls for an overhaul of humanitarian relief and development, for donors to fund urgent measures to help communities adapt to a new and more erratic climate and for donors and African governments to tackle poverty and invest in agricultural development. "Global warming is set to make many of the problems Africa deals with much, much worse," said Andrew Simms of NEF. "In the last year alone, 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have faced food crisis. Global warming means that many dry areas are going to get drier and wet areas are going to get wetter. They are going to be caught between the devil of drought and the deep blue sea of floods." Africa is the continent that is probably most vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change, and the one that faces the greatest challenges to adapt, according to the report.

For millions of people in the Horn of Africa and the eastern side of the continent, the success or failure of rains due over the next two months will be critical. Whether the rains fall will determine if 2007 offers the prospect of recovery from the serious drought of 2005-06 or be another year of struggle to survive.

From The Guardian's Comment is free, "This arsenal of facts brings Brown's big green chance"

The Stern report on climate change equips the chancellor with the case for a radical new approach to taxation
Jackie Ashley, The Guardian, Monday October 30, 2006

At last we are at a turning point on climate change. David Miliband likens it to the wartime discussions which produced the Beveridge report and the welfare state. Certainly the shifts in tax, spending and behaviour will be at least as big, and probably bigger. There is one huge difference, though. That was about giving people something new. Today's aptly named Stern report on climate change is defensive. It is about taking things away.

The challenge of climate change has long been the favoured cause of Liberal Democrats and, more recently, of David Cameron too. But the man who commissioned today's report from Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank, is Gordon Brown, the prime-minister-in-waiting. It is already clear that the 700-page report hands Brown what he likes best, an economic underpinning for politics. The world must invest £184bn now or face a bill up to 20 times as much if it delays.

As a tactic, this is pure Brownism. You cannot imagine him posing happily on a bicycle, still less getting into serious husky-bothering in the Arctic circle. He likes an awesome arsenal of facts to have been assembled first, which he can then pick from to pound opponents until they emerge from the smoking ruins with their hands up. It is a well-established pattern. Way back there was Labour's poverty commission. Then there were the 18 volumes of Treasury reports into the consequences of Britain joining the euro. There was Derek Wanless on the future of the NHS, and Adair Turner on pensions.

Then what happens? Sometimes, as with the euro, the fact-arsenal has been used to stop something happening. Sometimes, as with the health service, it has been used to explain a huge shift in spending. But always, as their authors would confirm, Brown deploys the results as he wants to. He uses experts as his supply-train, not as his generals.