Lord Nicholas Stern, British economist and academic who is most known for the Stern Review said, during an improvised speech at a Cape Town hotel in South Africa, that if we don’t act quickly and determinedly to address climate change the world will face billions of climate refugees and extended world wars in a near future:

“If the world’s nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will achieve “zero-carbon” electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by 2050 _ by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with cars running on electric or other “clean” energy.

Then warming could be contained to a 2-degree-Celsius (3.4-degree-Fahrenheit) rise this century, he said.

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Last week South Africa’s government unveiled an “ambitious” climate change plan that includes rigorous energy efficiency measures and a carbon tax on CO2 polluting industries.

“The world faces a global climate emergency. It is now clear that only action by both developed and developing countries can prevent the climate crisis from deepening,” environment minister Martinus Van Schalkwyk said in a statement.

In 2003 South Africa emitted 446 million tonnes of greenhouse gases “and forecasts growth to a maximum of 550 million tonnes a year by 2025.”

South Africa wants the greenhouse gas emissions to stop growing “at the latest by 2020 to 2025, stabilise for up to 10 years, and then decline in absolute terms.” Van Schalkwyk said that “the aim is to limit global temperature increases to two degrees above pre-industrial levels.”

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