US Government Report On Ill Effects Of Climate Change At Odds With POTUS; Warns Of ‘Catastrophic Consequences’

Climate change will cost the US economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the turn of the century, hitting everything from infrastructure to health, according to a report by the government issued on Friday, which the White House called ‘erroneous’, reports The New Indian Express.

The Congress mandated report, indited with the help of a sizeable number of US agencies and departments run by the government, outlined the projected impact of global warming on every corner of American society in a dire warning that is at odds with the Trump administration’s agenda.

“With continued growth in emissions at historic rates, annual losses in some economic sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century – more than the current gross domestic product (GDP) of many US states,” the report, the Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II, said.

Global warming would severely hit the poor while broadly undermining human health, damaging infrastructure, limiting the availability of water, altering coastlines, and boosting costs in industries from farming, to fisheries and the production of energy, said the report.

It said that projections of further damage could transmute if greenhouse gas emissions are sharply curbed, albeit many of the impacts of climate change – including more frequent and more potent inclemencies, droughts and flooding – are already under way.“Future risks from climate change depend primarily on decisions made today,” it said.

The US government-made report adds to a study conducted last year that concluded that humans as a species are the primary driver of global warming and warned of catastrophic effects to the planet.

The studies clash with the policies followed under President Donald Trump, who has been rolling back the Obama-era environmental and climate protections to maximise production of domestic fuel, including crude oil, putting them above Russia and Saudi Arabia.