The costs of not acting against global warming will endanger our national economy

During the year 2007, according to SERTUR (Servicio Nacional de Turismo), the number of tourists who entered the country reached a new record 898 million of arrivals. This same institution mentions on its yearly inform of the year 2007 that tourism contributes to a 3.05% of GDP.
Chile is becoming a developed country as its economy continues to develop. Still there is a major issue concerning not only our economy but also the global economy, and that is Global Warming.

Recently a report on the effect of this phenomenon in the economic ambit was released. The Stern Review concludes that “the benefits of strong and early action to stop global warming far outweigh the economic costs of not acting”.

Believe it or not Global Warming in endangering our economy and puting on risk our chances to keep expanding economicly. This affects directly our countries 5th main source of income, tourism. The Stern Review mentions that the “inaction on climate change could lead to a loss equivalent to between 5 and 20 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP), versus a 1 per cent of global GDP cost to take actions that mitigate the worst impacts of climate change”.

The decrease on the GDP not only will affect our income but also, as Ana Lia Uriarte, Minister of Environment said “it affects our resources, we need to create and maintain the places that attract so many people to Chile on a yearly basis”.

One of the main concerns according to Greenpeace Chile in that one of our main natural resources, glaciers, are melting. This issue not only endangers the species who inhabit them, but is also puting in risk one of our most important touristic destinantions located in the south of the country, the glaciers.

Hugo Lavados said, reffering to a section of the Stern Report "hundreds of millions of people could suffer from hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms", that this would be a “direct result from global warming which are results of a poor economy”. He also mentioned that “if people do not take an action to solve this problem soon, later we will all suffer the economic problems that this situation involves”.

Not only important figures are concerned by this issue, it is something that keeps concerning all sort of individuals in aour society. Paola Passalacqua a journalism student from Universidad Del Desarrollo in currenty involved in a recicling program concerning the university. She confirmed that “although some few peopleare trying to make a difference, change is almost impossible, we need a directed change that comes from higher authorities”.

Our nation is characterized as a nation who is far away from recicling habits and also less than concerned about the effects that this environmental phenomenon is going to have in our national economy a few years from now. The meassures to take are obvious, still authorities have done an impressive affort in order to dodge them. But, what will it happen later when everything collapse? That is a question to be asked to politics.