Global Climat Changes Evaluation - Book Report/Review Example

Running Head: Research Methods Paper Task: a Review of Literature on Climate Change The world communities have gone through various challenges emerging with contemporary phenomena. Anthony J et al (2003) present an exploration of the worlds' ecosystems that have been altered shifting focus from local ecosystems and transformed regional Climates. The resource explores the scale of these climatic alterations on a global scale relating the phenomena to the escalating global population size, energy consumption as well as the intensity of land use. The scale of climatic modification triggered by various human activities is also done in relation to various factors which enlist international trade and travel. The scholars note that, "The global changes have increased awareness levels that the long term welfare of the population with specific regards to health; will be determined by the sustained stability and functioning of the biosphere ecological, physical as well as socioeconomic complexes" The scholars' work also underscores that the global climate system is a central part of the entirety of life-supporting processes. The major thrust and contribution of the resource to the body of knowledge and literature on climate change is leveraged on the dimensions that acknowledges the pervading impact of climate and weather on human health and well being. The resource also portrays the global human population as under siege owing to the fact that the weather and climate system are going through tremendous changes like other natural systems a scenario that makes life sustainability on the planet precarious. The scholars' present in their resource that global climate change phenomena is a new dimensions and front to the current efforts aimed at curtailing salient threats to human health. Perhaps the outstanding contributions from the resource come from its description of the precincts and process of global climate transformation, the outlining of its real and probable impact on human health as well as how human communities and the leaders must on up to the challenges presented in the enunciated milieu with specific emphasis on the aspect of human health. Sir Nicholas Stern former Chief economist of the World Bank (2007) has made tremendous contributions on the research and bodies of knowledge on the subject of economic change. Stern's report is an outline of what He terms 'The economics of climate change". Stern presents in his report that much of the cost culminates form the effects of inaction. He expresses that inaction would critically decrease global GDP by at least 5% on a yearly basis. Stern proposes that mitigation on the other end would use around 1 percent of Global GDP on a yearly basis. Stern has issued a strong cautioning in his report stating that, "The climate change phenomena represent the greatest of market debacles this world has experienced" Stern (2006) outlined in his research report that countries had to expend 1% of the GDP to curtail the greenhouse gases rising to dangerous proportions. HE noted particularly that failure to do so would result in the gross damages worth much more 5% more beyond the 20% of the world's GDP. In his 2008 research report he states that the cost of climate change has phenomenally escalated to double figures of those earlier parented in his 2006 report. Stern bases the escalation of the figures on the fact that the rate of climate change is increasing at a rate higher than previously projected implying that the responsible emissions must be reduced even more sharply. Stern outlines in his research report (2008) that global emission to be slashed to the limit of 500ppm citing that this would be feasible in the endeavors to decrease risk from 50% likelihood to a 35 likelihood that the global mean temperature would go up by 5c beyond pre-industrial levels A comparison of Stern's reviews against other studies Brendan Fisher (2007) Notably the Stern (2006) Review differs widely from other mainstream approximations on the costs of climate change which use different methods of discounting expenses and benefits for the future. Researches around the cost of inaction or indeed climate change have been countered parallel researches by those who want to articulate that the costs of compliance to anti-global warming measures are staggering and unbearable. Various researches have highlighted that the costs of compliance to the Kyoto Protocol drafted to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide of the highly industrialised countries which ratified the agreement. Bjorn Lomborg (2001) in his 'The skeptical environmentalist" placed the cost of compliance to the protocol at $35 billion on an annual basis for the period of up 2010. He argues that, "Even where there is an outlay of the amount, warming will be merely delayed for a nominal six year by the century end". Claudia Kemfert (2005) of the German Institute for Economic research outlines in her research that the cost of Climate change is pegged at up to 20 trillion U.S Dollars in 2100. The research by British Scientists of the European Commission of environment places the figure at $73 trillion by 2200 according to the year 2000 prices. William D. Nordhaus (2007) outlines what he terms the 'best way' of conducting an economic evaluation of climate change as premised on cost-benefit analysis model. The scholar notes that the extensively accepted model procedure entails estimations of future costs as well as benefits which are then discounted in order to obtain their net current value. He notes that according to the cost benefit model a policy with a higher present worth figure of net benefits must be favored to a policy with lower net present value. He states that basing on the cost-benefit analysis model the optimal policy is the one that generates the highest present value of net benefits. The scholar states that one salient issue which has dominated perspectives recently on the matter of climate change is the issue of factors such as energy that present challenges as they have long time horizons. William D. Nordhaus (2007) states that the sticking issues around the present formula are based on the fact that if future costs and benefits are discounted by use of a positive rate discount, the future costs and benefits get less credence in the cost-benefit calculation model as compared to present costs and benefits. Further to that he says given a positive but nominal discount ratio it is determinable that the current value of a dollar of expenditure or benefits in the long-term future "is in effect zero." This in Nordhaus (2007) terms implies that the near-term expenditure as well as benefits are evaluated much more in the cost-benefit analysis as compared to future costs and benefits which brings up the issue of how discounting as well as the selection of the discount rate relate to the evaluation of dynamics of the economic evaluation of climate change. Harvard economist Martin Weitzman (2007) has provided new insights on the matter of conducting economic evaluations of climate change. He argues that most analyses techniques are limited as they are tailored exclusively for cost-benefit evaluation for non-extreme cliamte change possibilities. He says that these analyses models are limited when it comes to evaluation from scenarios that entail the variables of welfare "... in which total accounting may generate arbitrarily varying welfare results". (Martin Weitzman 2007) Fat Tail distribution diagram (Martin Weitzman 2007) In the model of analysis and economic evaluations of climate change (Shown on the fat tail distribution diagram above) the extremes of the damage function stand for what that which Weitzmen calls "rare climate disasters". In the scholar's conceptualisation disaster denotes a temperature change of over 6 degrees c (110F). The insights presented in the above review of literature are not exhaustive at all. Extensive reviews of relevant literature may be conducted to bring various nuances on other dimensions around the subject of climate such as future programmes, politics and general development, etc into perspective. References Anthony J. McMichael, D. H. Campbell-Lendrum, World Health Organization, C. F. Corvalan, K. L. Ebi, 2003, Climate Change and Human Health: Risks and Responses, World Health Organization Brendan Fisher Richard B. Howarth, Richard B. Norgaard;, and William D. Nordhaus 2007, Climate Science, College Press Claudia Kemfert & Michael Kohlhaas & Truong P. Truong & Artem Protsenko, 2005. "The Environmental and Economic Effects of European Emissions Trading," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 533, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. Claudia Kemfert & Truong P. Truong & Thomas Bruckner, 2005, "Economic Impact Assessment of Climate Change: A Multi-Gas Investigation with WIAGEM-GTAPEL-ICM," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 499, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research Oberndorfer, Ulrich & Rennings, Klaus, 2006. "The Impact of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme on Competitiveness in Europe," ZEW Discussion Papers 06-51, ZEW - Zentrum fr Europische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research Nicholas Stern (30 October 2006). "Stern Review executive summary", New Economics Foundation, WV Cost of tackling global climate change has doubled, warns Stern", Juliette Jowit and Patrick Wintour in The Guardian, June 26, 2008 Nordhaus, W. D. 1991, To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect. Economic Journal, NYK, NC William D. Nordhaus, 2007, Economics and Policy Issues in Climate Change Resources for the Future, McGraw Hill, London William D. Nordhaus; 2007, Resources for the Future, Milleniumm Publishers, NYK, NC Read More