Climate change caused by global warming is freezing theworld economy and already leading to the deaths of millions every year, areport commissioned by 20 of the world's most vulnerable countries saidWednesday.
"Climate Vulnerability Monitor: a guide to the coldcalculus of a hot planet" says global warming will not only lead toenvironmental catastrophe, but is choking the international economy.
Key findings include estimates that carbon-intensiveeconomies and associated climate change are responsible for five million deathsa year, 90 percent of them related to air pollution.
"Failure to act on climate change already costs theworld economy 1.6 percent of global GDP amounting to $1.2 trillion in forgoneprosperity a year," said the report, produced by the DARA research centerand released at the Asia Society in New York.
In addition, "rapidly escalating temperatures andcarbon-related pollution will double costs to 3.2 percent of world GDP by2030."
According to the report, "unprecedented harm" isbeing inflicted on humanity.
However, tackling climate change's causes would bring"significant economic benefits for world, major economies and poor nationsalike," the report said.
Former Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres said at thepresentation that there is a "fantastic" opportunity in steering awayfrom carbon-intensive economies.
"There's a tremendous amount of opportunity in terms ofdevelopment around the world as we reinvent everything," he said."This is where the future is."
Anything less, he said, is "in some ways similar torearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic."
The report says that while poorer countries face thesteepest economic damage in terms of GDP losses, big countries will not bespared.
"In less than 20 years China will incur the greatestshare of all losses at over $1.2 trillion. The US economy will be held back bymore two percent of GDP; India, over five percent of its GDP," the reportsaid.
It said these projected losses "dwarf the modestcosts" of addressing climate change.
The climate forum's chairman, Bangladeshi Prime MinisterSheikh Hasina, said weather pattern changes would be especially devastating forher crowded country.
"One degree Celsius rise in temperature is associatedwith 10 percent productivity loss in farming," she said at the New Yorklaunch of the report. "For us, it means losing about four million metrictonnes of food grain, amounting to about $2.5 billion. That is about twopercent of our GDP.
"Adding up the damages to property and other losses, weare faced with a total loss of about three to four percent of GDP."
A sea level rise of a meter (three feet), she said, wouldinundate a fifth of the low-lying territory, displacing nearly 30 millionpeople. "The scenario would be just as horrifying for small islanddeveloping states like Maldives, Kiribati and Tuvalu," she said.
Maldives President Mohamed Waheed called his country"ground zero for observing the impact of changing climate," but saidthe dramatic threat to the islands' future will eventually come to seeminglysafe countries.
"It's only a matter of time before every nation has tostep in our shoes."
Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of the aid agency OxfamInternational, called the report "another reminder that climate change'smost savage impact is hunger and poverty."
"The economic and social costs of political inaction ofunchecked climate change are staggering," he said. "Behind thestatistics are the stories of real families and communities, for whom climatechange means putting children to bed with empty stomachs."
Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Mohamed Mijarul Quayes told theforum in New York that radical change from carbon-heavy economies is the onlyway forward.
"There's no plan B, because there's no planet B,"he said.
