WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th November, 2018) The US economy is facing hundreds of billions of Dollars in losses by the end of the century due to climate changes, and present efforts to mitigate the crisis by reducing greenhouse gas emissions are inadequate to prevent the looming crisis, according to a major scientific report by 13 US Federal agencies that was released by the Trump administration.
"Neither global efforts to mitigate the causes of climate change nor regional efforts to adapt to the impacts currently approach the scales needed to avoid substantial damages to the US economy, environment, and human health and well-being over the coming decades, the 1,656-page report stated on Friday. "The potential for losses in some sectors could reach hundreds of billions of dollars per year by the end of this century."
The report is the second in a series of congressionally mandated assessments of climate change - an undertaking that the Trump administration allowed to go forward despite President Donald Trump's skepticism that human activity is the Primary cause of global warning.
In contrast, the report takes aim at climate-change skeptics, concluding that a global warming can only be explained by "human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases."
The report predicts continuing increases in high temperature extremes, heavy precipitation and coastal flooding as well as greater declines in land and sea ice cover, snowpack, and surface soil moisture in the coming decades.
The report warned of a $1 trillion decline in national wealth from damage to coastal real estate alone, with daily high-tide flooding and storm surges from hurricanes spreading further inland, and damage to oil, natural gas and electrical infrastructure along the Gulf of Mexico coast.
Elsewhere in the United States, Midwestern farmers will need management strategies to reduce erosion and nutrient losses caused by heavier rains, while forest managers in the Northwest will need to adapt to strategies to mitigate the impact of wildfires that affect human health, water resources, timber production, fish and wildlife and recreation, the report said.
While the impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify the severity of future impacts will depend largely on actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the changes that will occur, the report added.
