By 2030 We Will Pass the Point Where We Can Stop Runaway Climate Change

But a big economic transformation now could bring 65 million jobs and save 700,000 from early death linked to air pollution, says a new report.

The world is on the cusp of a green economic renaissance that it must embrace ― or else face a nightmare future of runaway global warming, according to a report commissioned by several governments including the U.K., Norway, and South Korea.

The next two to three years are a “critical window” for bold climate decisions that can usher in a new era of economic growth by 2030, says the study by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, an international green growth initiative fronted by former political leaders, including former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, and onetime Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

“This is more than just a report,” Calderón said.  “It is a manifesto for how we can turn better growth and a better climate into reality.  It is time we decisively legislate, innovate, govern, and invest our way to a fairer, safer, more sustainable world.”

On Wednesday, Calderón, Ngozi, and economists Lord Nicholas Stern and Helen Mountford, the paper’s lead author, will present the report to the United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres.

The study has been endorsed by several former government and business leaders and finds that a grand economic transformation could bring a $26 trillion economic windfall, create 65 million new jobs, and avoid 700,000 early deaths linked to air pollution ― by a conservative estimate.

Surging renewable energy production, the impending end of the internal combustion engine, and efficiency overhauls are all rapidly combining to make a new world possible, it points out.

Read more at By 2030 We Will Pass the Point Where We Can Stop Runaway Climate Change