The United Nations reported on Thursday that by 2030, fighting against climate change may cost about 4 percent of the world's GDP.
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics said, "This report shows that 2 degrees is still technically possible and ought to remain the primary policy target," reports Businessweek.
The 2-degree Celsius is the cap that most world leaders endorse to try and keep climate change under control, but would need greenhouse gases be reduced between 40 percent and 70 percent by 2050. In order for that to even come close to reality, investment and use of renewable energy would need to be increased threefold.
"Without explicit efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the fundamental drivers of emissions growth are expected to persist," the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found.
One hope had been using shale gas, according to The Guardian, but a recently released report from BP found that it won't be as useful as hoped. Part of the issue lies in that the technology needed to tap into shale gas has only just been perfected.
The report found that the exploration for shale gas won't reduce greenhouse gases much as the gases are currently set to rise by about a third in just the next two decades, according to the BP report. The use of coal, which produces plenty of CO2, is too prevalent worldwide for shale gas to cut into its use and help reduce greenhouse gases.
image: Wikimedia Commons
