Earth Equity News

Response to Financial Crisis Must Address Climate Crisis Too, Says Cambridge Scientist. By Terry Macalister, London Guardian, September 23, 2008. “There were marked similarities between the lack of transparency and action on complex lending risks that had wreaked havoc in the banking community and the kinds of dangers being stored up by corporate and political inaction over global warming, said [Terry] Barker, the director of the Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research [PDF, 5 pp] at Cambridge [University]. ‘Both threaten the economy with catastrophic collapse,’ added the economist, who... was speaking... at the Entrepreneurship for a Zero Carbon Society conference [there]. Barker believes the problems on Wall Street will take potential investment money out of the system. But he says a determined response by ministers could encourage the channelling of that cash into vital work on climate change. He fears that governments and business leaders have massively underestimated the risks posed by rising sea levels and changing weather patterns -- any costs associated with moving to a low-carbon economy were, he said, ‘negligible’ compared with the costs of doing nothing... The Cambridge academic said EU carbon reduction targets were far too low and would have to be raised if the world was to stand a chance of tackling the problem. There needed to be a 40% reduction in carbon output by 2020, not the 20% target that was currently in place.”