Protecting environment affordable, urgent-OECD

from AlertNet

Tackling climate change and other environmental hazards is affordable but urgent action is needed to avert irreversible damage, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Wednesday.

The 30-nation OECD said possible environmental safeguards might slow world growth by just 0.03 percent a year -- meaning that by 2030 the global economy would be 97 percent bigger than in 2005 instead of almost 99 percent larger with no measures.

"This is not a lot to pay," said Angel Gurria, head of the Paris-based OECD group of rich democracies in a 520-page Environmental Outlook issued in Oslo, saying costs were similar to those of an insurance policy.

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