Tough climate goals maybe easier than feared

Tough targets for avoiding dangerous global warming may be easier to achieve than widely believed, according to a study that could ease fears of a prohibitive long-term surge in costs.

The report, by scientists in the Netherlands and Germany, indicated that initial investments needed to be high to have any impact in slowing temperature rises. Beyond a certain threshold, however, extra spending would have clear returns on warming.


Until now, most governments have worried that costs may start low and then soar — suggesting that ambitious targets will become too expensive for tackling threats such as extinctions, droughts, floods and rising seas.

“It gets easier once the world gets going … ,” said Michiel Schaeffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands and lead author of the study in Tuesday’s edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Reuters