Climate change fight seen costing $300 billion a year

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming and adapting to impacts such as droughts and rising sea levels are likely to cost about $300 billion a year, the top U.N. climate change official said.

Yvo de Boer also told Reuters on Tuesday, on the sidelines of August 10-14 U.N. climate talks in Bonn, that cuts in emissions by 2020 so far promised by rich nations were "miles away" from long-term goals set by a Group of Eight summit last month.

"Over time, according to my own analysis, we are going to need $200 billion a year for mitigation and probably in the order of $100 billion a year for adaptation ... from 2020 onwards," he said.

Mitigation means curbs on greenhouse gases while energy production switches to renewables such as wind and solar power.

Developing nations say they will need cash to adapt to impacts of warming such as more floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

De Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said the numbers were rough estimates to illustrate overall needs for a long-term shift to a green economy.

A new U.N. climate pact is due to be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.

"It's a phenomenal amount of money but how much of that money is needed at the end of the day is to a large extent dependent on how ambitious the climate change response is," de Boer said.

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Source: Reuters