ECONOMIC IMPACT

We have all probably heard about the devastating physical effects that
global warming is projected to cause in the coming years. The basic effects
enumerated by most scientists include the warming of the earth, which will cause
various regional climate changes as well as a rise in sea level.

Indeed, it is projected that global warming will cause a number of

devastating weather changes, including an increase in floods, drought, hurricanes,
earthquakes, tsunamis, and various other severe weather pattern. But did you know
that global warming, if left unheeded and unchecked, may also cause several
devastating economic effects?

If the pattern of development of global warming continues as it has been,

it seems doubtless that global warming will not only be a major physical event, but
also a major economic event in which several regions are devastated financially.

Here is a brief analysis of the potential economic effects that global warming may
cause in several regions of the world.

By far, the economic sector most affected by global warming will be the
agricultural sector. This is because global warming is projected to cause serious
disruptions in the weather, which will have a domino effect on other factors. More
specifically, it is predicted that global warming will seriously affect the number of
rainfall that certain agricultural regions receive yearly. Without rainfall, agriculture
is simply impossible.

In the United States, it is projected that the American Southwest as well as

the entire arid Western United States will receive little rainfall. The drought will
grow longer and more severe until agriculture is no longer viable. Longer and more
intense wildfire seasons are also predicted for this area of the United States, which
will further compromise the ability to do agriculture in that area. Furthermore, a
drought will lead to the loss of land, resulting in a scenario resembling the
dustbowl of 1930s Depression-era America.
 In other areas, the opposite scenario may prove true: too much rainfall,
leading to flooding. This will also make agriculture a challenge, if not impossible.
Moreover, other areas with agriculture may also suffer from the extreme weather
wrought by global warming; this will devastate the agricultural sectors of many
regions around the world.

It is projected that as global warming continues to develop, some regions

will experience much wetter seasons, while other climates will experience much
drier seasons. Many oceanographers and other researchers also fear that this could
cause shifts in the ocean's conveyor, which in turn will cause sudden shifts in land
temperatures.

Keeping these things in mind, it becomes clear that without some kind that a
world dominated by the effects of global warming lacks the ability to sustain an
organized and constantly flowing supply of agriculture, making the economic costs
of global warming too great to predict. However, it is clear that if no immediate
steps are taken by world leaders, global warming could prove much more than just
an economic threat.

Report by Mr. Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under Secretary-General and

Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa

Africa is widely acknowledged to be the most vulnerable region to the

impact of climate although it contributes less than 4% of global emissions. The
impact of climate change in Africa will be through higher temperatures, changing
rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and extreme climatic events such as droughts and
floods.

The economic impact of climate change in Africa will cut across sectors
including agricultural production, energy supplies, food security, health and
shelter. Rain-fed agriculture contributes 30% of GDP in most African countries
and employs up to 70% of the populace.

The continent similarly relies on biomass for 80% of its energy needs.
While malaria previously unknown in high altitudes is spreading to such places.
It is estimated that a temperature increase of 2o Celsius could mean a loss of up to
5% of GDP in Africa mainly due to losses from agricultural production.
A slightly higher increase of 2.5o Celsius may mean hunger for an addition 128
million people while sea level rises impact negatively on property and investments
in coastal cities with large populations. There are human security implications of
migrations resulting from climate change which could spark conflicts and result in
loss of production, property and lives.

Adapting to climate change will impose massive additional costs on African

countries. The IPCC places the costs of adaptation to be at around 5% to 10% of
GDP. Action is needed on mitigation to avoid going over the tipping point by
restricting global warming to a minimum unavoidable level of no more than 2o
Celsius. Therefore, global emissions targets to be agreed upon in Copenhagen need
to be ambitious.

Warming Called Threat To Global Economy

Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global
economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning
environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual
gross domestic product, according to a report issued by the British government.

The report by Nicholas Stern ( Head Britain's Government Economic

Service and former chief economist of world bank) called for a new round of
international collaboration to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to global
warming.

"There's still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act
now and act internationally," Stern said in a statement. "But the task is urgent.
Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We
must not let this window of opportunity close."

"There's just a very small part of GDP" in industrialized nations "that's

affected by weather in a direct or indirect way," said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow
at the libertarian Cato Institute, which accepts some contributions from fossil-fuel
companies. "It's very difficult to sketch out this disaster scenario."

Yale University economics professor William Nordhaus, who has

estimated that climate change will cost developed countries less than 1 percent of
GDP over the next half-century, said the Stern report "appears to be an impressive
effort to summarize the science and economics of climate change" despite the
controversy surrounding its projections.

The report represents British Prime Minister Tony Blair's latest effort to
enlist president Bush, a close ally, in his effort to make serious cuts in carbon
dioxide emissions. Bush has declined to sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which
imposes mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases on most industrialized nations
between 2008 and 2012.

Insurance company worried about global warming

Europe's leading insurance companies are now so worried by global warming; they
are likely to use their financial muscle to get governments and the world's oil
companies to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

A greenhouse gas conference organized by the reinsurer, Swiss Re, has been
discussing a report backed by nearly 300 financial institutions, which argued that
global warming now poses a "serious threat" to the world economy.

The insurers have been drawing on the findings of the UN's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, which concluded we can no longer be in any doubt that
humans do affect the weather.

The result, say the insurers, is that in the next decade, the annual cost of global
warming will hit $150bn a year - that's five times the annual earnings of the entire
population of Nigeria.

Andrew Dlugolenski, who developed the report, said that there are now so many
assets, and so many people living in dangerous areas, like storm tracks or beside
the coast, that the economic damage from climate change is going to be huge.
 The real problem will be in places like Bangladesh, some places in India like
Mumbai (Bombay), Indonesia. These places are all the most exposed, because of
their very low coast lines.

Influence

Insurers make up a big part of the financial services industry, which is not without
influence since it manages $26 trillion of assets of companies, including of course
those involved in the fossil fuel industry.

So will it use its influence to change government policies and the policies of the
big oil companies?

It may sound simple, but Europe's leading financial institutions know there are big
barriers currently blocking any more radical action to cut greenhouse gas
emissions. The barriers are both political - with countries unwilling to give up
secure supplies of energy in an uncertain international climate - and technical.

Switching fuels

Michael Marvin, president of the US business council for sustainable energy,

admits that renewable energy sources will continue to make up a small proportion
of energy demand for some time to come.

However, Mr. Marvin argues that America could reduce its greenhouse gas
emissions dramatically simply by reducing its dependence on burning coal, which
is the dirtiest of fuel sources and yet generates 55% of America's electricity.
According to Marvin, even fuel switching, from one fossil fuel to another, from
coal to natural gas, will reduce emissions about 40% to 60% per unit of energy,
transition can be done anytime.

Mr. Marvin is critical of the decision by the world's biggest energy provider,
Exxon Mobil, in the early 1990s to pull out of solar power after spending $500m
on research.

"The idea that a marketplace can grow 30% or 40% year after year after year, a
company cannot make money in that or recognize the opportunities in that - maybe
that says more about the company than the technology?"

Boycott
Exxon's rivals BP and Shell maintain active solar and wind divisions and in so
doing, have escaped much of the criticism of Exxon that has flooded in from
environmental groups. The lobby group, Greenpeace has launched a campaign to
persuade consumers to boycott Exxon's fuel, which trades under the Esso name in
Europe.

Greenpeace claims that lobbying from Exxon was behind President Bush's decision
to pull America out of the Kyoto Treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas
emissions. Greenpeace also argues that Exxon has in the past downplayed the link
between increased burning of fossil fuels and severe weather.

Action

Gordon Sawyer, head of Exxon's public affairs in Britain, told World Business
Review their continued to be "well documented gaps in the climate science", but
nonetheless Exxon took "the risk of climate change seriously".

Mr. Sawyer said that inaction was "totally inappropriate" and pointed to Exxon's
big investment in energy efficiency in its own operations as well as the money it
has spent in cooperation with Toyota and General Motors on hydrogen-based fuel
cell technology to reduce carbon emissions from cars.

The question ahead is whether Exxon's reaction to the fears about climate change -
described by Mr. Sawyer as "learn as you go" type of action - will be fast enough
to appease the environmental critics and its investors.

REPORT ON ECONOMIC IMPACT(worldwide)

The costs of Global Warming are tremendous, estimates of course vary but
most figures put out are in the trillions. So what does this mean for you and how
are you directly affected by these costs?

It’s difficult to answer that question, because the first large-scale study of the
economic impact of global warming wasn’t released until recently. But let’s look at
some of the data we do have.

In 2007, scientists at the Carnegie Institution measured, over the past 20

years, the annual yields of the world’s six largest crops (which account for 55% of
non-meat calories consumed by humans and 70% of total animal feed)—and found
that increasingly warmer temperatures led to lower crop yields. Those lower crop
yields amounted to a net economic loss of $5 billion a year.

That’s good information, but there was one problem with the Carnegie
Institution’s study, however: It looked backward. But by the time the Carnegie
Institution’s study was released, another report had begun to gain notoriety: The
Stern Review In this 2006 report, Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the
World Bank, looked forward. His prediction: Climate change will have such a
serious impact on economic growth that 1% of global gross domestic product
(GDP) will be required to mitigate its effects. That’s a lot of money, given that
GDP was almost $70 trillion in 2008(World Bank sources)

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the discussion. Since the Carnegie
Institution’s study and The Stern Review came out, numerous other studies have
tried to quantify the economic impact of global warming. And most of these
studies have focused on the negative economic impacts of global warming.

For example, in June 2008, the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued its
Technology Perspectives report, which concluded that carbon dioxide emissions
should be reduced by 50% from 2008 levels. To achieve this, the report projects
that $45 trillion in financing will be needed over the next 40 years. That represents
about $1 to $2 trillion per year in commercial investment financing.

Another example: In July 2009, Oxfam International released “Suffering the

Science—Climate Change, People and Poverty.” This report—which used
information gathered from the insurance industry to assess the economic impact of
global warming—concluded that trade patterns will likely shift as climate change
takes hold. Richer parts of the world will receive a boost, while poorer regions
suffer. For example, Oxfam predicted that American agricultural profits will rise
by $1.3 billion annually because of climate change, while sub-Saharan Africa will
lose $2 billion annually as the viability of one of the region’s staple crops maize
declined.

Some of these studies on global warming, however, point out that

addressing global warming could be more costly that not addressing it. In June
2009, for example, Ben Lieberman, senior policy analyst for energy and
environment at the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The
Heritage Foundation, testified before the U.S. Senate that the cap-and-trade
approach to addressing global warming—in particular, the Waxman-Markey Cap-
and-Trade Bill—inflicts “economic pain.”
 “Higher energy costs kick in as soon as the bill's provisions take effect in
2012,” Lieberman testified. “For a household of four, energy costs go up $436 that
year, and they eventually reach $1,241 in 2035 and average $829 annually over
that span. Electricity costs go up 90% by 2035, gasoline by 58%, and natural gas
by 55% by 2035. The cumulative higher energy costs for a family of four by then
will be nearly $20,000. But direct energy costs are only part of the consumer
impact. Nearly everything goes up, since higher energy costs raise production
costs. If you look at the total cost of Waxman-Markey, it works out to an average
of $2,979 annually from 2012 to 2035 for a household of four. By 2035 alone, the
total cost is over $4,600. Beyond the cost impact on individuals and households,
Waxman-Markey also affects employment, and especially employment in the
manufacturing sector. We estimate job losses averaging 1,145,000 at any given
time from 2012 to 2035. And note that those are net job losses, after the much-
hyped green jobs are taken into account.”

Clearly, estimating the economic impact of global warming is no simple

task, and is fraught with political discourse. But there is one sure sign that global
warming is having an economic impact: Investors are starting to consider it an
opportunity.

Sophisticated institutional investors, typically the first to jump on a new

investment trend, have already recognized the opportunities that exist in the
alternative energy space. According to New Energy Finance, total new global
investments in clean energy were $33.4 billion in 2004, $58.7 billion in 2005 (76%
growth), $92.6 billion in 2006 (58% growth) and $148.4 billion in 2007 (60%
growth)—and they will continue to increase through 2030. Indeed, Jane Mendillo,
president and CEO of Harvard Management Company, told Smart Money in 2008
that the next big thing in the endowment world could be alternative energy.

And now retail investors are getting involved as well. A number of mutual
funds allow average Joes and Janes to invest in companies that are seeking to
mitigate the effects of climate change or helping the world adapt to them.

In fact, climate change could be the next big investing trend.

“Restructuring in the global economy according to principles of ecology

represents the greatest investment opportunity in history,” said Lester Brown,
president of Chief Earth Policy Institute, in 2008.
REPORT ON INDIAN IMPACT

'The Economics of Climate Change' a landmark report by Sir Nicholas

Stern has some dire predictions about the impact global warming will have on
India's economic prospects. For instance, an estimated 100 cm rise in sea level
could lead to a loss of US$ 1,259 million or the equivalent of 0.36% of India's
GNP.

Global warming and subsequent changes in climate could severely hamper

India's robust growth unless steps are taken to address the effects of increased
surface temperature and its effect on monsoon patterns and river flow, according to
the recently released Stern review on the economic impact of climate change.

Some of the key predictions for India, over the next 100 years, in the 700-
page British government-commissioned report are:

Regional climate models suggest a 2.5-5 degree Celsius rise in mean surface
temperature. Within India, northern India will become warmer.

 A 20% increase in summer monsoon rainfall. Instances of extreme

temperature and precipitation are expected to rise. All Indian states will
experience increased rainfall, except Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu
where rainfall will decrease. Extreme precipitation will increase, particularly
along the western coast and west central India.

The country's hydrological cycle will most likely be altered. Drought and flood
intensity will increase. The Krishna, Narmada, Cauvery and Tapi river basins will
experience severe water stress and drought conditions, and the Mahanadi,
Godavari will experience enhanced flooding.

 Crop yields will decrease with increases in temperature and precipitation. It

is predicted that wheat crop losses will be greater, especially rabi crops. This
will threaten the country's food security.
  Coastal agriculture will suffer the most -- Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh will face yield reduction West
Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh will gain marginally.

A 100 cm rise in sea level could lead to a loss of US$ 1,259 million – the
equivalent of 0.36% of India's GNP.

 There will be an increase in

the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal,
particularly in the post-monsoon period. Flooding will increase in low-lying
coastal areas.
 Malaria will continue to be endemic in traditionally malaria-prone states
(Orissa, West Bengal, southern parts of Assam and North West Bengal). It
may also shift from the central Indian region to the southwestern coastal
states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. New regions -- Himachal
Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram -- will
become malaria-prone; the disease's transmission duration window will
widen in northern and western states and shorten in southern states.

India's economic losses due to increases in temperature are estimated to be

between 9-25%. GDP loss may amount to 0.67% annually

KYOTO PROTOCOL
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto
Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the
European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These
amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period
2008-2012.

The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the
Convention encouraged industrialized countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the
Protocol commits them to do so.
Recognizing that developed countries are principally responsible for the current
high levels of GHG emissions in the atmosphere as a result of more than 150 years
of industrial activity, the Protocol places a heavier burden on developed nations
under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.”

The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and
entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation
of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001, and are called the
“Marrakesh Accords.”

Monitoring emission targets

Under the Protocol, countries actual emissions have to be monitored and precise
records have to be kept of the trades carried out.

Registry systems track and record transactions by Parties under the

mechanisms. The UN Climate Change Secretariat, based in Bonn, Germany,
keeps an international transaction log to verify that transactions are consistent
with the rules of the Protocol.

Reporting is done by Parties by way of submitting annual emission inventories

and national reports under the Protocol at regular intervals.

A compliance system ensures that Parties are meeting their commitments and

helps them to meet their commitments if they have problems doing so.

Adaptation
The Kyoto Protocol, like the Convention, is also designed to assist countries in
adapting to the adverse effects of climate change. It facilitates the development
and deployment of techniques that can help increase resilience to the impacts of
climate change.
 The Adaptation Fund was established to finance adaptation projects and
programmers’ in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
The Fund is financed mainly with a share of proceeds from CDM project
activities.

The road ahead

The Kyoto Protocol is generally seen as an important first step towards a truly
global emission reduction regime that will stabilize GHG emissions, and
provides the essential architecture for any future international agreement on
climate change.

By the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, a new
international framework needs to have been negotiated and ratified that can
deliver the stringent emission reductions the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) has clearly indicated are needed.

Copenhagen summit

The results and its contribution to stop Global Warming?

Copenhagen was planned to get a middle path/ solution between developing and
developed nations.

Excess consumption and wastage of energy has to be prevented. More efficient

technologies have to be found. If possible, ways have to be devised to absorb
GHGs so that they don't accumulate in the atmosphere. Nature offers such a
solution in trees, which absorb carbon dioxide and are therefore very good carbon
sinks and are good for reducing GHG concentrations.
The Copenhagen meet was expected to fix bigger targets on these countries for a
period beyond 2012 and till 2020.

Why should the rich pay more? Well, it's only fair since they created the problem
in the first place. More than 80 per cent of the accumulated GHGs in atmosphere
have been emitted by these countries since they were the first ones to industrialise.
They continue to emit more, a handful of about 30 rich countries account for nearly
half the global emissions. Their average per capita emission is more than twice the
world average and at least ten times more than that of India. A lot of it results from
wasteful and luxurious consumption of energy.

But that doesn't mean the rest can just sit back and do nothing, does it? According
to the Bali Action Plan, every country needs to take steps to reduce its energy
consumption. But unlike rich countries, they do not have to affix targets and the
reduction targets are not legally binding. This has been done so that the developing
countries don't find themselves constrained in their effort to increase economic
activity and reduce poverty. Development and poverty reduction have been
recognised as the primary and overriding concern for these countries and that
includes India.

Rich countries, for example, want big, emerging economies like India and China to
also take some sort of targeted reductions in their rapidly growing emissions.
Developing countries, on the other hand, are demanding more ambitious emission
cuts from the rich countries. They are also asking for transfer of technology and
money to cope with the effects of a problem that is essentially the making of rich
countries.

Copenhagen Summit India and climate change

The facts India is the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China, the
United States, the European Union and Russia. Its annual carbon dioxide emission
is in the range of 1.2 to 1.4 billion tones. Its annual greenhouse gas emission (CO2
plus five other gases, including methane) is in the range of 1.6 to 1.8 billion tones.
India's per capita emission is about 1.2 tons per year. That's about one fourth of the
global average, about one-tenth of the emissions of developed countries and about
one-third of China's. Between 1990 and 2004, India's carbon dioxide emissions
grew by about 7 per cent a year on an average.
Copenhagen Summit India's traditional argument:

Development and poverty reduction is its primary and over-riding priority even as
it shares responsibility for contributing to global efforts to contain temperature rise
and climate change. It is, therefore, in no position to cap or reduce its emissions,
though it is working towards slowing the growth of its emissions. Reducing
greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) is the sole responsibility of Annex-I
countries (developed nations), as the Kyoto Protocol says. India will take
mitigation efforts only if the developed world supports it with technology transfer
and finance. India has already come up with a National Action Plan on Climate
Change in line with its responsibility under the Bali roadmap. Several other steps,
including a new building code, fuel efficiency standards and massive afforestation,
have also been initiated. However, these domestic actions are not open to
international scrutiny. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given an assurance
that even as its total emissions grow, India will never allow its per capita emissions
to rise above the average per capita emissions of the developed world.

Copenhagen a failure

The UN climate summit ended with weak outline of a global agreement in

Copenhagen , falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were
seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to
Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political
agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord "recognises" the scientific case for
keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to
emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

Obama said: "This progress is not enough.We has come a long way, but we have
much further to go."

The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but
it was unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary
session. The deal aims to provide $30bn a year for poor countries to adapt to
climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year by 2020.
But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries which had been holding
out for deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this
century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in past drafts were removed at
the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2
emissions by 80% was also dropped. Canada openly rejected its Kyoto
commitment in the middle of summit.

The agreement also set up a forestry deal which is hoped would significantly
reduce deforestation in return for cash. It lacked the kind of independent
verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the US and others
demanded.

Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. He also
aimed at developing countries and said- they should get out of the mindset, and
moving towards the position where everybody recognizes that we all need to move
together". Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush.

Copenhegen after one year

Agreement made at Copenhagen and not kept in full…

 The controversial Copenhagen accord asked the rich countries to provide

$30 billion of quick money to poorest countries for 2010-2012.
 It asked developed countries to provide $100 billion a year by 2020.
 Developing countries agreed to international consultation and analysis (ICA)
of their domestic and voluntary action to reduce emission which they would
list up with the UN framework convention on climate change.
 Trust break between countries with the Copenhagen accord being forced
through.

AFTER COPENHAGEN
 US tried hard to make the Copenhagen accord the basis of all future
negotiation. Developing countries refused to let it happen. Allowed
the accord to influence the decision but not become the basic tablet of
discussions.
  Japan and others refused to let Kyoto Protocol continue.
 Some countries make a partial commitment to the $30 billion fast
track money but promises are false.

Show us the money

 The promised money of $30 billion is about to come. One third of

the period is passed and no money is on the table.
 US has not officially announced its contribution to the fast track
fun. Obama is spending money but it is not new fund US already
invest in overseas development will be re named as climate money.
 Other countries are doing the same-renaming exiting funds as green
funds.
 How much of the money is through market and how much is real
public spending includes double counting of cash.

Cancun climate summit (Mexico, 2010)

The 2010 United Nations climate change conference was held in Cancun, Mexico.
The conference is officially referred to as the 16th session of conference of
parties(COP16) to the united nation framework convention on climate
change(UNFCCC). The outcome of summit was an agreement.
It recognizes that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible
threat to human societies and the planet, and thus requires to be urgently addressed
by all Parties. Affirms that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our
time and that all Parties share a vision for long-term cooperative action in order to
achieve the objective of the Convention, including through achievement of a global
goal. It recognizes that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as assessed
by the IPCC in its Fourth Assessment Report.
It further recognizes that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are
required, with a view to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions so as to hold the
increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and
that Parties should take urgent action to meet this long-term goal, consistent with
science and on the basis of equity; Also recognizes the need to consider, in the
context of the first review, strengthening in relation to a global average
temperature rise of 1.5°C. Realizes that addressing climate change requires a
paradigm shift towards building a low-carbon society
The agreement includes a "Green Climate Fund," proposed to be worth $100
billion a year by 2020, to assist poorer countries in financing emission reductions
and adaptation. There was no agreement on how to extend the Kyoto Protocol, or
how the $100 billion a year for the Green Climate Fund will be raised, or whether
developing countries should have binding emissions reductions or whether rich
countries would have to reduce emissions first. The New York Times described the
agreement as being both a "major step forward" given that international
negotiations had stumbled in recent years.

The REDD+ initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest

Degradation), which attracted a lot of attention at COP 16, calls for rich countries
to finance forest-saving actions in developing countries, benefitting local actors,
and rural and indigenous communities in particular.

When a forest is included in the mechanism, it will prevent the local communities
from utilizing it as they have for their livelihood, "because whoever is in the forest
will have to assure that the carbon stock would be retained. It means extracting
carbon dioxide, one of the leading greenhouse gases, and sequestering it in "sinks,"
deep in the oceans, in forests and underground. Those investing in such deals
would then be able to trade emissions credits on the carbon market.

Carbon capture and storage technology has not been proved yet. It is not ready to
be put into practice. It is a further way of moving away from renewable energies,
moving away from mitigation, to some kind of technology that would not solve the
problem. Better idea is to leave the carbon where it belongs.

Even the country which hosted summit (Mexico) said- We are the coldest country
in the world, so global warming is good for us. The warmer it is, the bigger the
harvest. They talk about stopping deforestation of the tropical jungles to fight
climate change, but we don't have tropical jungles. So, Cancun summit also ends
without solving the emission puzzle.

Health Effects

A. Past Research

In the early 1970s, the U.S. Department of Transportation sponsored a series of

conferences on climate change that examined, among other things, the effect of
climate on health care expenditures and on preferences of workers for various
climates. At that time, the government and most observers were concerned about
possible cooling of the globe. The Department organized the meetings because it
planned to subsidize the development and construction of a large fleet of
supersonic aircraft that environmentalists contended would affect the world’s
climate.
The third gathering, held in February 1974, examined the implications of climate
change for the economy and people’s well-being and included a study of the costs
to human health from cooling, especially any increased expenses for doctors’
services, visits to hospitals, and additional medication. For that meeting, the
Department asked the researchers to consider a cooling of 2°C and a warming of
0.5°C. Robert Anderson, Jr., the economist who calculated health care outlays,
made no estimate of the costs or savings should the climate warm; but his numbers
show that for every 5 percent reduction in the annual number of degree days, a
measure of heating costs, health care costs would fall by $0.6 billion (1971
dollars).1 In his paper summarizing the various studies on economic costs and
benefits of climate change, Ralph D’Arge (1974), the principal economist involved
in the DOT project, indicated that a 10 percent shift in degree days would be
equivalent to a 1°C change in temperature. Thus the gain in reduced health costs
from a warming of 2.5°C would be on the order of $3.0 billion in 1971 dollars or
$21.7 billion in 1994 dollars, adjusting for population growth and price
changes (using the price index for medical care). Other studies of the influence of
climate change on human health have examined a rather narrow set of potential
medical areas. The underlying research has generally referred to Lyme disease,
malaria, dengue and yellow fevers, and encephalitis, none of which is a major
health problem in the United States. The IPCC has asserted that the “geographical
zone of potential malaria transmission in response to world temperature increases
at the upper part of the IPCC-projected range (3-5°C by 2100) would increase from
approximately 45% of the world population to approximately 60% by the latter
half of the next century.” Work concerned with “killer” heat waves has generally
ignored the reduction in mortality that warmer winter months would brin.
Interestingly cities with the highest average number of summer deaths are
found in the Midwest or Northeast while those with the lowest number are in the
South. Perhaps people adapt to warm weather.

II. Human Well-Being

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith pointed out that workers must be paid
more to work in an unpleasant place or to do nasty jobs. A casual examination of
the job market illustrates the truth of that proposition. Oil companies must pay
their workers premiums to cope with the climate on the North Slope of Alaska.
Even in central and southern Alaska, labor commands higher wages than it does in
the lower 48 states. These differentials reflect the desirability of jobs in one area
over another. For example, those who have the least distaste for cold and darkness
can be lured for the smallest premium to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to work in the oil
fields. The differential in this case reflects the marginal valuation of the
unpleasantness of work in that harsh environment of those with the least aversion
to the conditions.

A. Theory of Amenity Values

There is a large and growing economic literature on such amenity values.

Locational advantage can be reflected in the willingness of workers to accept lower
wages or in the bidding up by business and home owners of land values.7 If land
values are raised enough, wages could even be forced higher to maintain real
incomes. However, it is likely that if workers willingly work for less in a region
with positive amenity values, this sum understates the benefits of the location.
Some benefits have probably been capitalized into land values and are reflected in
rents. Thus living costs are raised, making the reduction in wages that workers will
accept smaller.

B. Studies of the Effect on Rents

Roback found that none of the climate variables had any statistically significant
relationship to land values, although heating degree days had a positive coefficient.
Blomquist et al (1988) reported that precipitation, humidity, heating degree days,
and cooling degree days were negatively related to housing expenditures — a
proxy for land values — while wind speed, sunshine, and being close to the coast
were positively related. Even though statistically significant, both cooling and
heating degree days had very small effects on housing expenditures. Taking into
account the effects of heating and cooling days on both wages and housing costs,
the full implicit price of these variables was trivial. Gyourko and Tracy (1991)
reported that the more precipitation, the greater the number of cooling degree days,
the more heating degree days, and the higher the wind speed, the lower their
measure of housing expenditures. On the other side, they also found that the higher
the relative humidity and the closer to the coast (t=1.94), the higher the housing
costs. In sum existing studies have reported mixed correlations between housing
costs and weather-related amenity values. Gyourko and Tracy (1991, p. 784)
conclude their analysis of amenities by finding that "for many city traits, the full
price largely reflects capitalization in the labor rather than in the land market." The
rest of this paper, therefore, will assume that climate amenities do not affect
production costs and, as a result, any wage reduction underestimates the benefits
from warming, although most of the amenity values do appear in the labor market.

C. Studies of the Effect on Wages

The DOT’s third conference on global climate change, referred to above, used
differences in occupational wages among urban areas to estimate the value of
climate to humans. One of the tables, presented by Ralph C. D’Arge in his
overview of the economic research, drew on the work of Irving Hoch to supply
estimates of the costs and benefits of a 0.5°C warming. Hoch’s work (1974)
implies that a rise in temperature would have bestowed on workers an implicit gain
of $1.6 billion in 1971 dollars. In other words, workers would have been willing to
accept $1.6 billion less in wages for employment in regions that were 0.5°C
warmer. Roback found that heating degree days, total snowfall, and the
number of cloudy days was positively correlated with wages, suggesting these are
disamenities. As expected, the number of clear days was negatively correlated with
wages. Gyourko and Tracy reported that heating degree days were positively
correlated with weekly hedonic wages. The coefficient for cooling degree days
was also positive but not significantly different from zero. Both precipitation and
wind speed were significantly negatively correlated with the hedonic wage
variable, a somewhat puzzling result. Blomquist et al , on the other hand,
found that both heating degree days and cooling degree days were negatively
correlated with their hourly wage equation, implying that workers prefer both cold
and hot weather.

Tourism feels the heat of global warming

Climate is an essential 'resource' for tourism, especially for beach, nature and
winter sport tourism, and the phenomenon of global warming already gravely
affects the industry and an increasing number of destinations. In 2003, the Madrid-
based UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) convened the 1st International
Conference on Climate Change and Tourism in Djerba, Tunisia, to help the travel
and tourism industry to respond to these issues. The UNWTO, which became a
special UN agency only a few years ago, is traditionally driven by a strong
Business Council that aggressively advances the interests of the world's most
powerful tourism-related corporations.
That the UNWTO declared climate change a priority issue shows the growing
awareness among industry leaders and policymakers that the impacts of global
warming pose a serious threat to tourism - one of the world's largest and fastest-
growing industries, generating over 10.4% of world GDP, according to the World
Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
Notably, the Djerba conference recognised that the relationship between climate
change and tourism is two-fold: not only is tourism affected by a changing climate,
at the same time it contributes to climate change through the consumption of fossil
fuels and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. It was concluded that there was an
'urgent need for the tourism industry, national governments and international
organisations to develop and implement strategies to face the changing climate
conditions and to take preventive actions for future effects, as well as to mitigate
tourism's environmental impacts contributing to climate change' (Djerba
Declaration 2003).
The burgeoning international ecotourism industry is also feeling the heat. At the
Global Ecotourism Conference 2007 (GEC07) that was jointly organised by The
International Ecotourism Society (TIES), Ecotourism Norway and the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) in Oslo, Norway in May, it was agreed that
'Climate change has increasingly become a major threat affecting the very
resources on which ecotourism depends - natural areas and local and indigenous
communities around the world....Stronger leadership and strategies are needed in
order to substantially decrease ecotourism's carbon footprint generated from
multiple sources including facility operations and transport-related greenhouse gas
emissions.'
There are a couple of reasons why travel and tourism leaders are now feverishly
working on the climate change front. Firstly, the economic costs of climate change
for the industry will rise inexorably if it takes a business-as-usual attitude.
Secondly, tourism relies more than other industries on a good image, but its
reputation as a beneficial and environmentally acceptable activity has rapidly faded
during recent debates on the causes of global warming.
Economic factors

Critics have always pointed out the fickle nature of tourism, and indeed the
industry's special vulnerability to bad news and events has been proven many times
in recent years; just consider the slumps following terrorist attacks such as 9/11
and the Bali bombings, the threat of diseases such as SARS and avian flu or
environmental crises. The Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina
that hit New Orleans in 2005 exacted an immeasurable toll on the travel and
tourism industry. What needs to be calculated here are not only the costs of lost
property and the reconstruction of tourist infrastructure in the wake of disasters,
but also the costs of tourists staying away from crisis-hit destinations for a long
time as well as the high expenditures for promotional campaigns to get tourists
visiting again.
To enable the tourism sector to respond promptly and effectively in cases of
emergency, the UNWTO and international business associations such as the
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) have already made major investments to
establish crisis centres and risk management task forces. Further efforts are
underway to develop climate change policies for the tourism sector that offer
adaptation and mitigation measures aimed at preventing or reducing high
expenditures in tourist areas affected by climate-change-related problems.
The urgency of taking action is shown by the case of Fiji. Like numerous other
small islands around the world, Fiji's islands are highly vulnerable to climate
change, and the tourism industry is already suffering from the impacts in the form
of cyclones, storm surge and flooding, sea level rise, erosion, transport and
communication interruption, and reduced water availability. The 'climate-change-
related hazards have the potential to destroy existing tourism capital and severely
undermine efforts to attract new investment from within Fiji and overseas.
Increasing insurance premiums aggravate the risk.'

Aviation, cruise-ship industry major climate change culprits

The aviation industry in particular is now facing enormous pressure since the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and environmental campaign
groups have singled out the role of air travel in accounting for a considerable
portion of global greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the world's 16,000
commercial jet planes generate more than 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
(CO2) per year, almost as much as from all human activities in Africa each year,
according to Friends of the Earth.
The huge increase in aircraft pollution is largely due to the rapid growth of tourism
and related air traffic. A WWF briefing paper on 'Tourism & Climate Change'
(2001) states that the actual tonnage of CO2 emitted will increase by over 75% by
2015; concomitantly, from almost 700 million international travellers in 2000,
numbers are expected to jump to over one billion by 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020.
'As a consequence, the role of air travel within the tourism industry is likely to
expand, cause considerable environmental damage, and to have knock-on effects
on the tourism industry itself,' concludes WWF.
Given the recent negative publicity, tourists in Western countries are changing
their behaviour and tend to fly less. There are now even voices in Europe that go so
far as to suggest that flying away on holiday is immoral and should be stopped
altogether.
'Warming stops global roaming,' wrote the Australian newspaper Daily Telegraph
recently. A survey in Australia done by a holiday website found that nearly 20%
of respondents considered giving up air travel as it causes irreparable harm to the
environment, while only 16% said they do not care about climate change and it
would not affect their travel choices at all. Similarly, a study prepared for
Greenpeace in the UK showed a clear shift in consumers' perception: 61% of the
respondents were of the opinion that 'We should limit our air travel voluntarily',
33% agreed that 'Air travel is now too cheap', 52% agreed that 'There should be a
tax on fuel for air travel', and 61% of the respondents supported the idea that 'There
should be a pollution warning on air tickets'.
Apart from aviation, the booming cruise-ship industry has also come under fire.
Cruise ships that can carry up to 5,000 tourists are not only notorious for
generating tremendous amounts of waste and sewage but also rank among the
biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions within the travel and tourism
industry. The US Bluewater Network that campaigns against the pollution of the
world's oceans by ships has found that in one port visit, a single cruise ship can
generate the emissions of more than 12,400 cars. The ships' smokestacks release
toxic emissions that lead to acid rain, global climate change, and damaging health
effects to communities situated near ports. Despite the fact that ocean cruise liners
are more energy-efficient than other forms of commercial transportation, marine
engines operate on extremely dirty fuels, known as 'bunker oil'. To compound the
problem, engines on these ocean-going ships are currently not required to meet the
same strict air pollution controls as cars and trucks are required to do.
Global travel and tourism could only grow by leaps and bounds because the
transport networks that enable the movement of people and goods around the
world are heavily subsidised. Tourists can enjoy travelling around the world at
incredibly low prices. As the New Economics Foundation study 'Up in Smoke?'
explains, '...much international trade lives in a bubble. International aviation and
marine fuels are immune from any kind of taxation that would indicate and
internalise the real environmental cost of freight and shipping. Greenhouse gas
emissions from international freight are also exempt from the emissions targets set
for rich countries to meet under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Climate Change
Convention.'
Growing consumer awareness on these issues and a burgeoning citizens' movement
calling for fuel taxes and stricter regulation of the transport industry can severely
curb future tourism growth targets and, thus, cut deep into the profits of plane-
makers, airlines, travel agencies, cruise-ship operators and other tourism-related
businesses. No wonder, then, that companies are now scrambling to talk about
hard-earned environmental advances and new initiatives to protect the
environment.
At the Paris Air Show in June, for example, Airbus' top salesman John Leah told a
press conference that Airbus is 'saving the planet, one A380 at a time'. The
company's promotional brochures featured a silhouette of the new two-deck A380
super-jumbo - dubbed the 'gentle green giant' - set against images of dolphins,
rainforests and fishing boats on a misty pond. Boeing representatives were also
keen to display their ecological bona fides and claimed the industry has reduced
fuel consumption by 70% since the jet age began, reported Dow Jones Newswires.

Image is all

While the global travel and tourism lobby has adopted the rhetoric of corporate
social and environmental responsibility, reality checks on the ground show that
tourism's environmental performance has remained very poor. Neither the UN-
initiated International Year of Ecotourism 2002 nor multilateral environment
agreements such as the Tourism Guidelines under the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) have achieved anything to stop tourism from pervading pristine
coastal areas, islands, forests and mountainous areas.
On the contrary, more fragile ecosystems and biodiversity are being destroyed,
local communities displaced and traditional livelihoods decimated - all for the
establishment of huge exclusive resorts, golf courses and marinas. These massive
tourism complexes are also notorious for high per capita consumption of energy
and water. But however damaging and wasteful these projects may be, with the
right PR efforts, they can still pass off as 'ecotourism' developments and even raise
their profile thanks to eco-accreditation schemes, or environmental best practices
awards.
As long as no proper legally binding frameworks are in place to check and redress
excessive and damaging tourism activities, such 'green-washing' will continue and
climate change culprits are likely to get away scot-free.
Ecotourism promoters' intention to help minimise tourism's carbon footprint is
laudable. The GEC07 Oslo Statement, for example, outlines an action plan that
aims at 'encouraging adapted travel patterns (e.g. increase length of stay per trip);
promoting more energy-efficient, alternative or non-motorised transport options;
utilising reduced and zero-emission operation technologies; and increasing
participation in reliable high-quality carbon offsetting schemes'.
But many of the new initiatives that promote 'zero-carbon' or 'carbon-neutral'
tourism businesses need to be subjected to critical examination because they may
just be marketing gimmicks. For instance, The Guardian (UK) announced in
January that Per Aquum, the brand behind some of the world's most luxurious
resorts, was the owner of the first 'zero-carbon' five-star beach resort, designed by
architects in London. The developers of the resort, due to open in 2008, claim the
project will have no negative environmental impact and will be totally self-
sufficient, using only energy from the sun and wind and producing little waste or
carbon emissions. 'The only drawback, environmentally speaking, is its location -
thousands of fuel-guzzling miles away [from London] in Nungwi, Zanzibar,'
cautioned The Guardian.
Six Senses Resorts and Spas, a Bangkok-based luxury hotel chain with properties
in Thailand, Vietnam and the Maldives, now specialises in 'carbon-cutting
getaways' for millionaires who do not want their 'vacation dampened by global
warming guilt'. Apart from introducing energy-saving innovations at the luxurious
island resorts, all visitors are required to pay a tax for their flight, which goes into a
carbon offset fund. The project owners say the fund will be spent on renewable
energy projects for villages in Sri Lanka and India, thus offsetting among the poor
the carbon emissions caused by jets transporting the rich to their holiday
destination. Yet, can Six Senses really be called an environmentally friendly
company considering that it consumes exorbitant amounts of water to run its spa
facilities, for example?

Controversial carbon offsetting and trading schemes

A growing number of airlines have included carbon offsetting into the price of
tickets. However, there are increasing reports about shady 'think green, see cash'
carbon trading businesses that are trying to take advantage of well-intentioned air
travellers. When Lufthansa earlier this year was looking for a partner to offer a
carbon offsetting scheme to customers, half of the 13 studied companies were
considered unreliable.
Last year, the activists Timothy Byakola and Chris Lang exposed a Dutch
company called GreenSeat which promised to invest airline passengers' carbon
offset contributions in climate-friendly projects in poor countries. For the paltry
sum of US$28, one would be able to cover the costs of planting 66 trees to
'compensate' for the CO2 emissions of a return flight from Frankfurt to Kampala.
But looking closer at one of these projects, in Mount Elgon National Park in
Uganda, the activists found that local people were harassed and even driven from
their land to pave the way for the tree plantations. GreenSeat has since stopped
selling carbon credits from Mount Elgon because of the problems there. Earlier this
year, farmers cut down half a million of the project's trees and planted crops and
fruit trees on the land.
Carbon trading that enables companies and consumers to buy their way out of
responsibility are highly controversial. It 'dispossesses ordinary people in the South
of their lands and futures without resulting in appreciable progress toward
alternative energy systems', argues Larry Lohmann of the UK-based The Corner
House, who has co-edited the book Carbon Trading: A Critical Conversation on
Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. 'Tradable rights to pollute are handed
out to Northern industry, allowing them to continue to profit from business as
usual. At the same time, Northern polluters are encouraged to invest in supposedly
carbon-saving projects in the South, very few of which are actually helping to halt
dependence on fossil fuels.'
Linking climate change and 'pro-poor' tourism

If the goal is to effectively decrease greenhouse gas emissions in the travel and
tourism sector, there seems to be no way around curbing the growth of the
industry. It thus would make sense if governments rethink tourism as a
development solution and offer alternatives to tourism in order to at least reduce
the over-dependence on this industry in developing countries. But whenever such
proposals come up, the tourism world is quick to argue that tourism is a top
industry in the battle against world poverty.
The UNWTO has declared that the global tourism sector offers solutions to the
'twin challenges of climate change and poverty', in response to UN Secretary-
General Ban Ki-moon's call for action on climate change to be taken in close
coordination with global action on poverty alleviation and the Millennium
Development Goals. A major aspect of UNWTO's submission to the UN climate
change summit in Bali in December will be to demonstrate that the agency 'is
committed to ensuring that this coherence is applied to the tourism sector generally
and particularly in regard to the world's poorest countries, for whom tourism is a
driver of jobs, livelihoods, exports and competitiveness'.
The focus on tourism as a viable foreign exchange earner for poor countries has
always been rebuffed by critical analysts due to tourism's high leakages, for
example. But tourism's benefits become even more questionable in today's carbon-
constrained world, as Becken convincingly illustrates in her case study on Fijian
tourism. She concludes that the 'eco-efficiency of tourism is possibly low when
the total of greenhouse gas emissions are weighted against the economic benefits
for Fiji, especially when about 60% of tourism foreign exchange leak out of Fiji'.
The argument of tourism as a poverty alleviation strategy is even more doubtful in
view of the increasing number of foreign takeovers of tourism businesses as a
result of globalisation and liberalisation. To stay with the case of Fiji, investment
statistics show that 94% of the 132 tourism projects put into operation between
1988 and 2000 were foreign-owned. That means less tourism revenue trickles
down to the local economy, but Fijian residents, including those who do not
participate in the tourist trade at all, have to bear the high costs of tourism's energy
use, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. According to
Becken, tourism within Fiji contributes at least 7.4% to national energy use and
CO2 emissions, and if international air travel to and from Fiji is included, tourism
makes up almost 30% of national totals. Hence, tourism must be considered a
burden to the poor, not a panacea!

What's next?

The 2nd International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism, which aimed
to continue and deepen the discussions that started in Djerba 2003, was held in
Davos, Switzerland, from 1-3 October. Vowing to contribute to the UN Secretary-
General's global roadmap for the climate change meeting in Bali, UNWTO
Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli said, 'The tourism industry is going to
double between now and 2020. We cannot afford that the emissions also double in
the same time.' Conference delegates agreed that the tourism sector must decrease
its greenhouse gas emissions, derived from transport and accommodation
activities; adapt tourism businesses and destinations to alter their practices; utilise
technology to bolster energy efficiency; and obtain financial resources to assist
poor regions and countries.
The results of the Davos conference were to be submitted to the Tourism
Ministerial Summit on Climate Change in London on 13 November, and to the
UNWTO General Assembly in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia on 23-29
November. After that, the UNWTO is intent on showing its presence at the Bali
climate summit.
Also worthy of mention is the PATA initiative to mobilise influential travel and
tourism industry leaders to sign on to a cross-sector industry response to climate
change. In this context, a major event, 'CEO Challenge 2008: Confronting Climate
Change' was held in Bangkok on 29-30 April 2008. The ambitious goal for the
'CEO Challenge' was to create a single platform and action plan, fully engaging
tourism ministers and heads of tourist boards, CEOs of airlines and airports, CEOs
of leading international hotel groups, major tour operators and other key industry
stakeholders.
Also , the aviation industry would convene its third Aviation and Environment
Summit in Geneva. It is urgent that civic movements concerned with climate
change issues monitor and respond to these ongoing activities because travel and
tourism is one of the world's most omnipotent industries, not only due to its size
and growth but also as a driver of globalisation and trade liberalisation. Existing
campaign networks, such as Third World Network and the UK Working Group on
Climate Change and Development that includes the New Economics Foundation
(nef), Friends of the Earth (FoE), Greenpeace, Oxfam and WWF, should pay more
attention to the problems of tourism-related climate change issues in their action
plans and help lobby industry, governments, and intergovernmental agencies to
take more decisive steps to curb relentless tourism expansion that exacerbates the
climate change crisis.
More cooperative efforts to combat the negative impacts of climate change should
be made by the academic community, development aid agencies and non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) that are specifically concerned with tourism
development. The Indian NGO Equations (Equitable Tourism Options) made a
good start when it released a 'Call for Action on Climate Change, Biodiversity and
Tourism' on the occasion of International Biodiversity Day on 22 May 2007.
Among other things, it called on the tourism industry to come up with an authentic
response to climate change. 'We recognise that [effective measures] may require a
significant transformation of current forms of mass tourism and urge a serious
engagement on this issue to reduce tourism's climate change footprint,' says the
statement. Furthermore, Equations demands 'climate justice' by phasing out
unsustainable growth strategies. It states, 'The responsibility of seeking viable and
sustainable solutions to avert the climate crisis must take into account particularly
the plight of the most vulnerable communities around the world.'

Fishing Facts
The oceans have been fished for thousands of years and are an integral part of
human society. Fish have been important to the world economy for all of
these years, starting with the Viking trade of cod and then continuing with
fisheries like those found in Lofoten, Europe, Italy, Portugal, Spain and India.
Fisheries of today provide about 16% of the total world's protein with higher
 percentages occurring in developing nations. Fisheries are still enormously
important to the economy and wellbeing of communities.

The word fisheries refer to all of the fishing activities in the ocean, whether they
are to obtain fish for the commercial fishing industry, for recreation or to obtain
ornamental fish or fish oil. Fishing activities resulting in fish not used for
consumption are called industrial fisheries. Fisheries are usually designated to
certain ecoregions like the salmon fishery in Alaska, the Eastern Pacific tuna
fishery or the Lofoten island cod fishery. Due to the relative abundance of fish on
the continental shelf, fisheries are usually marine and not freshwater.

The amount of fish available in the oceans is an ever-changing number due to

the effects of both natural causes and human developments. It will be
necessary to manage ocean fisheries in the coming years to make sure the
number of fish caught never makes it to zero. A lack of fish greatly impacts
the economy of communities dependent on the resource, as can be seen in
Japan, eastern Canada, New England, Indonesia and Alaska. The anchovy
fisheries off the coast of western South America have already collapsed and
with numbers dropping violently from 20 million tons to 4 million tons—they
may never fully recover. Other collapses include the California sardine
industry, the Alaskan king crab industry and the Canadian northern cod
industry. In Massachusetts alone, the cod, haddock and yellowtail flounder
industries collapsed, causing an economic disaster for the area.

Due to the importance of fishing to the worldwide economy and the need for
humans to understand human impacts on the environment, the academic
division of fisheries science was developed. Fisheries science includes all
aspects of marine biology, in addition to economics and management skills
and information. Marine conservation issues like overfishing, sustainable
fisheries and management of fisheries are also examined through fisheries
science.

In order for there to be plenty of fish in the years ahead, fisheries will have to
develop sustainable fisheries and some will have to close. Due to the
constant  increase in the human population , the oceans have been overfished with
a resulting decline of fish crucial to the economy and communities of the world.
The control of the world's fisheries is a controversial subject, as they cannot
produce enough to satisfy the demand, especially when there aren't enough fish left
to breed in healthy ecosystems. Scientists are often in the role of fisheries
managers and must regulate the amount of fishing in the oceans, a position not
popular with those who have to make a living fishing ever decreasing populations.

In many countries, commercial fishing has found more temporarily economical

ways of catching fish, including gill nets, purse seines, and drift nets. Although fish
are trapped efficiently in one day using these fishing practices, the number of fish
that are wasted this way has reached 27 million tons per year, not to mention the
crucial habitats destroyed that are essential for the regeneration of fish stocks. In
addition, marine mammals and birds are also caught in these nets. The wasted fish
and marine life is referred to as bycatch, an unfortunate side-effect of unsustainable
fishing practices that can turn the ecosystem upside-down and leave huge amounts
of dead matter in the water. Other human activities like trawling and dredging of
the ocean floor have bulldozed over entire underwater habitats. The oyster habitat
has been completely destroyed in many areas from the use of the oyster patent tong
and sediment buildup draining from farm runoff.

CONCLUSION
The effect of global warming has its sway on various spheres of life which also
includes the economic aspect. The economical effects of global warming are a
sincere concern which is troubling the people. When the global average air
temperature near the earth's surface is rising for the past it can surely harm the
economic life of the people. The amount of economic losses which will be
experienced by the future world offers a scary statistics. Since the economical
effects of global warming can be defined by taking care of several other factors.
Since the global economy depends on both agriculture and other sectors, it is
essential to know that there are various indirect harms which global warming is
capable of doing. In the field of agriculture the global warming will decrease the
percentage of arable land, leading to low productivity and low exporting and
importing.

Some of the top economists of the world have tried to estimate the future aggregate
net economic costs of damages pertaining to climate change all over the world.
Since the growth of temperature can further lead to melting of the ice capped
regions, the water level will rise and the people in the coastal regions will be
demolished. The rising temperature of the water is destroying the marine life at a
fast pace and it will surely harm the fishing industry of the world. When it comes
to other sectors of economy, they depend largely on water for their processing part.
Some regions of the world will become dry and inherit arid type of climate which
may not be congenial for their growth. The economical effects of global warming
are vividly described by various programs conducted by the concerned agencies of
the world.

The extreme heat and unwanted changes in climate will surely trigger the loss of
global gross domestic product by up to 1%. The economists all around the world
do predict that the global warming will have an adverse effect on the growth of
infrastructure of the world. If people get affected by poor health and suffer from
various diseases, it ultimately harms their potential and that leads to waste of
human resources. The United Nations Environment Programs put emphasis on the
fact that the prevalence of global warming in the world is capable of doing great
harm to the insurers, re-insurers and bank. When it comes to other economic
sectors, the economical effects of global warming will have a deep impact on
agriculture and transport. Developing countries are considered to at larger
economic risk than their developed counterpart. 

As is obvious, the predictions of global warming are dire. They project a world

in which the droughts become longer and more intense, where dramatic whether
becomes more extreme, where the wet seasons become wetter, and where there can
be sudden shifts in the land temperature. Keeping these things in mind, it becomes
clear that without some kind that a world dominated by the effects of global
warming lacks the ability to sustain an organized and constantly flowing supply of
agriculture, making the economic costs of global warming too great to predict.
However, it is clear that if no immediate steps are taken by world leaders, global
warming could prove much more than just an economic threat.