Climate Protection Assessment of Costs of Inaction or Delayed Action of Climate Protection and Climate Change

T he ultimate objective of the climate convention and of related instruments like the Kyoto protocol is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that avoids dangerous climate change. In order to considerably reduce risks of climate change, the European Union already decided a climate protection target: to prevent global surface temperature to increase more than 2°C (Celsius) compared to pre industrial levels. The number and intensity of extreme weather events, such as flooding caused by heavy precipitation, heat waves and big storms has considerably increased in the past. With a temperature increase of over 2°C the probability of even more frequent heavy climate events could rise substantially. Big re-insurance companies, such as the MunichRe, figured out that extreme weather events have risen by a factor 3.1 since 1960. This has led to drastic growth in both economic and insured losses. For example, the flooding in Europe in the year 2003 caused losses of 9.3 billion Euros only in Germany.