The worst consequences of climate change can still be avoided — if humanity acts quickly. The IPCC has determined that doing so would cost just 0.1 percent of world GDP. But the rise in CO2 emissions would have to stop by 2015. The costs are not the problem — time is. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is calling for a strict timetable to prevent the worst consequences of global warming. The IPCC issued its report ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ on Friday in Bangkok. The goal set by the climate experts is as follows: CO2 emissions need to be reduced by between 50 and 85 percent by 2050. That would require global CO2 emissions to begin sinking in 2015. If that’s achieved, the extent of global warming can probably be limited to an average temperature increase of between one and two degrees Celsius (1.8 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. The costs would amount to 0.12 percent of the world’s total GDP — a small percentage but an enormous sum. But IPCC argues that investing in mitigation will pays off. The first two parts of the IPCC’s report show that the human contribution to global […]