Stern: greatly underestimated costs in climate change report?

November 4, 2006

The of the Economics of Climate Change put the cost of keeping emissions at 550 parts per million at one percent of global GDP

A leaked draft report, by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due to be published next year, estimates this cost could be between one and five percent of global GDP. The Stern Review put the costs of not acting to resist climate change could be between 5 and 20 percent GDP.

It is reported that UK Ministers are to travel to India and America to promote the Stern Review. Their task will not be eased by the leaked IPCC report which is now said to be available freely on the internet.

Following the Stern Review, Chancellor Gordon Brown urged the member states of the to tighten their targets even further.