Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change

The Stern Review is a report into the economic impacts of climate change and global warming on the world economy, and was compiled by economist Sir Nicholas Stern for the government of the United Kingdom. Released on October 30, 2006, and containing over 700 pages, the Stern Review is historically notable as being one of the first major government-sponsored reports on global warming conducted by an economist and not an atmospheric scientist.

Its main conclusions are that one percent of global GDP is required to be invested in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, and that failure to do so could risk a recession worth up to twenty percent of global GDP.

Stern's report suggests that climate change threatens to be the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, and it provides prescriptions for how to minimize the economic and social disruptions. He stated that "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

source: Wikipedia.org