Could Climate Change Lead to World War?
Well, even something short of that would not be good. But over at Grist, climate economist Nicholas Stern explains why the answer is “yes.”
Lord Nicholas Stern, one of the world’s most prominent climate economists, believes that failure to address global warming could eventually lead to World War III. In 2006, he produced the “Stern Review” on behalf of the British government, clearly laying out the potentially catastrophic economic consequences of failing to address climate pollution. Since then, the scientific understanding of the damages from global warming has grown, and Stern has warned that his report “underestimated the risks.” In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress, Stern described his current understanding of the stark consequences of inaction, which defy the scope of standard economic language. If no global policy to cut carbon pollution is enacted, there is about a 50 percent risk that global temperatures would rise above levels not seen for 30 million years by 2100, an extraordinary rate of change. The “potentially immense” consequences of this radical transformation of our planet, Stern explained, include the “serious risk of global war.”
- Climate Change Will Cost Even More than Estimated, Economist Says (ecoworld.com)
- Sir Nicholas Stern: On Our Way to Calamitious +5C (stephenleahy.net)