Enlarge image
Haze over a lignite power station (symbolic image)
Photo: MICK TSIKAS / REUTERS
The aid organization Oxfam warns the leading industrial nations of severe damage to the economy due to a lack of climate protection.
"The climate crisis could cost the G7 countries an average of 8.5 percent of their annual economic output in 2050 if they do not take more ambitious measures to combat the climate catastrophe," said Oxfam.
The loss would then amount to $ 4.8 trillion, as calculations based on an analysis by the Swiss Swiss Re Institute would have shown.
That is the equivalent of around 3.95 trillion euros.
At their summit from Friday in Cornwall, the G7 should agree to "reduce CO₂ emissions faster and more".
In addition to Germany and Great Britain, France, the USA, Italy, Japan and Canada are members of the group of seven leading democratic economic powers.
The greatest threat to the world economy
The Swiss Re Institute had already determined in April that the climate crisis was the greatest long-term threat to the global economy.
Without countermeasures, there is a risk of a temperature increase of more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 compared to the pre-industrial age, and the global economy would shrink by 18 percent.
Oxfam is referring to a scenario where Swiss Re is already assuming "some countermeasures" and an increase of 2.6 degrees.
The global gross domestic product would decrease by 14 percent in the model.
According to Oxfam, this level could be achieved on the basis of current commitments from all countries.
At the international climate conference in Paris in 2015, the countries of the world actually agreed to limit global warming to well below two degrees and to do everything possible to stop the temperature rise at 1.5 degrees.
Oxfam criticized the fact that the commitments made by the G7 countries before the World Climate Conference at the end of the year fell well short of what was necessary to achieve the 1.5 degree target.
As some of the largest emitters in the world, the G7 should lead by example.
"The forecast economic turmoil in the affluent G7 countries is only the tip of the iceberg," said Max Lawson, head of the international campaign against social inequality.
"In many economically disadvantaged parts of the world, deaths, hunger and poverty will increase as a result of extreme weather events."
aar / dpa
