World Bank Report Slams 'Inertia' in the Face of Climate Change

A major new World Bank report out today concludes that the world can fight poverty and climate change at the same time. But it won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap.

The biennial global economic assessment, which this year focuses exclusively on the threat of climate change, estimates that nations will need nearly $500 billion annually by 2030 to both develop clean energy technologies across the world and cope with natural disasters.

Beyond the need for money, the “World Development Report 2010″ calls on governments, research institutions and individuals to overcome a worldwide “inertia” that the authors argue has kept nations dependent on fossil fuel and too slow to muster the resources necessary to solve a problem many still see as distant.

“We are particularly good at acting on threats that can be linked to a human face, that present themselves as unexpected, dramatic or and immediate,” the report warns. “The slow pace of climate change as well as the delayed, intangible and statistical natures of its risks simply do not move us.”

NY Times