The World in 2030

The World in 2030 105
When we consider the fate of the planet as a whole,
we must be under no illusions as to what is at stake.
Earth’s average temperature is around 15ºC and
whether we allow it to rise by a single degree, or 3ºC,
will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of species
and most probably billions of people. Never in
the history of humanity has there been a cost-benefit
analysis that demands greater scrutiny…
If humans pursue a business-as-usual course for the
first half of this century, I believe the collapse of civilisation
due to climate change becomes inevitable. 204
Even politicians have been bold enough to cast the future
in similar terms. Tony Blair, one of the world’s politicians
who was engaged most with the problems of climate change
while in office, said in 2004:
The emission of greenhouse gases…is causing global
warming at a rate that began as significant, has
become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the
long term. And by long term I do not mean centuries
ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children
certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable,
I do not mean a phenomenon causing
problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so farreaching
in its impact and irreversible in its destructive
power, that it alters radically human existence…
There is no doubt that the time to act is now. 205
A year later Britain’s then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Gordon Brown, commissioned Sir Nicholas Stern to