Report: Environmentally damaging activities create up to $25 trillion annually USD loss

 

"A study completed by 165 environmental scientists reveals that the negative impact of some businesses, such as the agriculture, energy and fisheries sectors, on nature, climate change and human health creates losses of up to a quarter of global GDP every year.

 

This is the conclusion of scientists from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in their report, which took three years to prepare. The Financial Times reports on it.

 

The fact that the problems of climate change, lack of clean water, loss of biodiversity and food security are not solved on a global scale leads not only to their deepening, but also to economic losses.

 

The aforementioned platform is analogous to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it unites environmental scientists from 94 countries.

 

The joint report prepared by the scientists shows that environmentally harmful activities create from 10 to 25 trillion USD (9.5–23.8 trillion. Eur) of losses annually. How does the “domino effect” of damage arise?

 

For example: an agricultural field that is over-fertilized may yield a high yield in the short term, but the excess fertilizer will be washed away with rainwater and reach either groundwater or nearby surface water bodies. The water body will become polluted, and the plants or fish and aquatic organisms growing in it will suffer.

 

When the summer season arrives, residents will swim in the body and may experience various health problems due to pollution. If the pollutants reach deeper underground layers from which someone else’s water well water is brought, the contaminated water can be used as drinking water and cause even greater negative health effects.

 

Mr. McElwee called for more frequent discussions about the broader impact that one or another business decision ultimately has.

 

IPBES noted that some governments still fund environmentally harmful activities (such as overfishing, fossil fuel extraction) and then have to compensate for losses caused by extreme weather events or health problems caused by climate change. States spend $1.7 trillion (€1.62 trillion) per year on such subsidies.

 

Meanwhile, private businesses invest $5.3 trillion (€5.05 trillion) per year in activities that directly damage the environment, such as deforestation, the development of highly polluting industries, or excessive extraction of minerals (overexploitation).”

 

In the age of artificial intelligence, it is very easy to calculate the damage caused by everyone and force them to pay compensation.