The effects of climate change no longer describe a theme that could bring very much novelty, as we are all aware that it’s been happening since the beginning of time and as centuries pass, consequences become increasingly visible. Although weather affects our general life conditions mainly in negative ways, people in Africa have been blessed with 4 more inches of so much needed rainfall over the last few years.
Global warming is beneficial for Africa, by boosting food supplies due to the richness in vegetation, privileged by heavy rainfalls. For more than 15 years the environment and landscapes in Sahel have modified, with the landscape greening up and desertification reversing.
Climate experts say that people most often ignore the advantages that a general rise in temperature could offer for some places in the world. There are clearly positive effects, translated in smaller amounts of CO2 emissions. While this happens, vegetation is allowed to grow and develop, offering back improved air quality and boosted food supplies for people.
On the other hand, besides the small beneficial exceptions revealed in some places of the world, global warming poses serious threats on nature and on mankind. Temperatures rise, causing glaciers to melt, sea levels to rise, animals to lose their habitats and entire ecosystems to disappear.
Global temperature has met an increase of 1.7 degrees over the last hundred years and UN now predicts that the earth will warm between 2.5 to 5.5 degrees over the century. Warming will thus cause the world’s gross domestic product to be 1, 1% lower in 2100, for instance.
The costs of warming outweigh the benefits, obviously stating. People that work in fields of business strongly tied to the environment need to reconsider their portfolio risk management procedure. This is nevertheless worrying, as global warming begins to take shape as a phenomena that can affect the increase of material resources, namely business profits, leading industries to irreversible deterioration. If the environment is not capable enough to sustain the development of business with infrastructure to its core and basic structure, evolution will soon turn into fantasy rather than facts, with economies shrinking and people getting poorer.
Coal industry faces the greatest risk in degradation, as recent reports show that average annual returns could fall as much as 74% over the next 35 years. Climate change will most probably impact investment returns, reason why companies have already started to take measures, as on Monday Europe’s leading companies in gas and oil industries urged governments to introduce a pricing system for carbon emissions.
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