- Current global consumption patterns would require a second Earth. Natural resources are currently being consumed at 1.5 times the capacity that Earth can provide. (“2010 Living Planet Report” by World Wildlife Fund)
- Tipping points could arrive suddenly. Sudden shifts in the Earth’s natural systems could arrive precipitously, without warning. (Dr. Alan Hastings, professor at University of California, Davis in the USA and one of the world’s foremost mathematical model experts)
FINANCIAL COSTS
- Damage from rising seas, floods and heat waves due to the loss of Arctic Sea ice will cost the sectors of agriculture, real estate and insurance up to US$24 trillion by 2050. Heat waves, flooding and other factors are already resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars lost annually. (US Pew Environmental Group report)
- Global losses due to natural disasters could triple to US$185 billion per year by 2100. Damage from climate change-related powerful cyclones could add to this up to US$58 billion annually. (UN/World Bank joint report, 2010)
- In the 2009 Copenhagen climate change summit, nations approved a US$30 billion fund to help vulnerable countries cope with climate change impacts, plus agreed to provide US$100 billion per year from 2020.
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