IMF's Lagarde - Climate, Not Debt Or Austerity, Is The Biggest Economic Challenge Of This Century

Climate change not debt or austerity is "the greatest economic challenge of the 21st Century," according to Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Lagarde painted a stark picture of the challenges the world faces when up against rising temperatures.

"The science is sobering—the global temperature in 2012 was among the hottest since records began in 1880. Make no mistake: without concerted action, the very future of our planet is in peril," she said. "So we need growth, but we also need green growth that respects environmental sustainability. Good ecology is good economics. This is one reason why getting carbon pricing right and removing fossil fuel subsidies are so important."

Lagarde, who said that "vulnerability" to "resource scarcity and climate change" could lead to "major social and economic disruption," was France's finance minister under Nicholas Sarkozy.

More and more of the world's top economists are warning that the failure to act quickly on climate change is putting the global economy at risk. Last year the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, laid out a stark warning on climate change as well.

EDIT

Ed. - Note - this is the same Jim Yong Kim who said that coal-powered generating plants had to be provided to developing economies so that they could get rich enough to deal with the impacts of rapid climate destabilization. Uh, OK . . .


http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0206-hance-lagarde.html