I have been remiss in posting both the State Journal Register and the Associated Press’ web sites were I steal…oh I mean “fair usage” all of these articles.

http://www.sj-r.com/

http://www.ap.org/

And the latest, while America fiddles the world burns.

U.N. Chief: Adaptation to warmer world could cost $20 trillion

 

By JOHN HEILPRIN

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS__________

UNITED NATIONS — Global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over

 two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can

 least afford to adapt, U.N. Secre­tary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in a new report.

Ban’s report provides an overview of U.N. climate efforts to help the 192-nation

 General As­sembly prepare for a key two-day climate debate in mid-February.

That debate is intended to shape overall U.N. policy on climate change, i

ncluding how nations can adapt to a warmer world and ways of supporting the

U.N.-led negotiations toward a new climate treaty by 2009, U.N. officials said

Wednesday. The treaty, replacing the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012,

could shape the course of climate change for decades to come. The Kyoto pact

requires 37 industrial nations to reduce greenhouse gases by a relatively modest

5 per­cent on average.Much of the focus has been on the United States, the only

major industrial nation to reject the treaty, and on fast-developing na­tions such as

China and India.
 

Many are looking to. next year, when a new U.S. president takes the White House.

 The leading contenders in both political par­ties favor doing more than the vol­untary

 approaches and call for new technologies that President Bush espouses.

In his 52-page report, Ban says that global investments of $15 tril­lion to $20 trillion

 over the next 20 to 25 years may be required “to place the world on a markedly

dif­ferent and sustainable energy tra­jectory.” Today, the global energy indus­try

spends about $300 billion a year in new plants, transmission networks and other new

 invest­ment, according to U.N. figures. Srgjan Kerim, a Macedonian diplomat and

economics professor who is president of the U.N. Gen­eral Assembly, told

The Associat­ed Press that cutting greenhouse gases alone will not be enough

to pull island nations, sub-Saharan Africa and other particularly vul­nerable parts

 of the world back from the brink of irreversible harm.

Annie Petsonk, a lawyer for the advocacy group Environmental Defense,

said global warming will mostly affect poor people and mi­norities, because

the wealthy can spend more to adapt.

But then again it’s money well spent!