Transcript
JOHAN ELIASCH: Now, I’m going to address climate change today. And the title of my address is "The Next Global Security Threat." And maybe that sounds a bit desperate. But in a few years to come, if we don’t do anything, it is probably true. And to put it into context, we look at security threats.
The U.S. budget for war on terror since September 11th has exceeded $600 billion. But if you look at the global carbon market, it’s just below $30 billion -- so, about 5 percent. So you can see -- priorities, this is not a priority. Now, Bush, he once said -- President Bush once said, "Our time in history will be remembered for new challenges and unprecedented danger." Now, the good news with climate change is that, unlike terrorism, climate change is a more straightforward challenge, insofar as it’s more quantifiable. And we have a much better understanding and a lot of evidence of what is going on. But the bad news is that if we do nothing, the impact on mankind can be catastrophic. So we must view climate change with much more of a sense of urgency than is being done today.
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