Officials in America and Britain report on how a changing climate could batter their countries
IF YOU want to persuade voters to make difficult choices in order to tackle climate change, it helps to make clear precisely how their own homes might be affected by shifting weather patterns. Although climate change is widely expected to do most damage in poor countries, where large and vulnerable populations are most likely to be battered and displaced in the coming decades, rich ones will be affected too. This week two governments, in America and in Britain, set forth reports detailing what changes might be in store at home.
In America, on Tuesday June 16th, a team of scientists representing different federal agencies offered some grim reading. Their report begins with a gloomy but plausible assumption that politicians will fail to agree upon mandatory caps on emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon, which are helping to warm the planet. It then sketches out different scenarios, which vary according to economic and population growth at home and abroad, and by the development of technology. Broadly, these are pessimistic. Temperatures across the United States are expected to rise, on average, within a range of 2.2-6.4ºC (4-11.5ºF) by the end of this century.
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