The Stern Report, release in 2006, is the world's biggest ever economic evaluation of climate change. It states that if countries don't act now the world will face a depression worse than that of the 1930s. It puts the cost of global warming and its effects at $9 trillion - a bill greater than the combined cost of the two World Wars and the Great Depression. What the Stern Report emphasises is that even if the world stopped all pollution tomorrow the long term effects of carbon already in the atmosphere would mean continued climate change for another 30 years, with sea levels continuing to rise for a century. The Stern report predicted that the world would need to spend one per cent of global GDP, around $AU 500 billion. That's roughly what is spent worldwide on advertising, and half of what the World Bank estimates would be the cost of a full-blown flu pandemic.
One degree
