Warning of widespread crop failures, malnutrition, and dislocated populations, the World Bank issued a study Sunday urging the international community to take action on the mounting challenges of an increasingly sweltering planet.
The report identified a threshold of 4 degrees Celsius, beyond which global warming could cause irreparable damage to human settlements, including a 3-foot rise in sea levels by 2100. Paraphrasing World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Schneider writes, "World climate goals aim to hold the mean temperature increase to under 2 degrees Celsius, by curbing emissions of greenhouse gases that trap heat... That goal is unlikely to be met, with an increase of 3 or 3.5 degrees Celsius now considered probable."
In comparison, the last ice age followed a drop in global temperatures of about 4.5 degrees Celsius.
"The kind of sea level rise we are talking about is going to make the process of urban planning and services to the poor absolutely fundamental," said Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s vice president for sustainable development.
Notes Schneider, "But the bank report concluded that a 4 degree jump in average temperatures would push some countries or regions to the brink of collapse, regardless of how hard they try to adapt."
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Skeptics respond to World Bank's climate warning
Wendy Koch of USA Today writes on the World Bank report as well on Nov. 20, but unlike the Washington Post, included the skeptical reactions from the conservative Cato Institue and Heritage Foundation:
"This report is non-science," says Patrick Michaels, director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for the Study of Science. He says the 4-degree warming is an 'implausible outlier'."
"David Kreutzer, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees. He also says the World Bank's recommendations, including redirecting money now spent on fossil-fuel subsidies toward solar and wind energy production, could ultimately do more harm than good for developing countries."
"Proposing energy killing climate policies for the emerging economies is like telling the emaciated to start their diet now because they may become overweight in 90 years," Kretuzer says.