Ignore at our own risk

Environmental threats may seem imperceptible causing nations to often ignore them. But a recent UN report warns: “Environmental threats are among the gravest impediments to lifting human development, and their consequences for poverty are likely to be high. The longer action is delayed, the higher the cost will be.”
Recent human ‘progress’ may be reversed throughout much of the developing world as a result of climate change, according to the UN’s recently released 2013 Human Development Report. The report notes that while climate change will affect the whole world, the more equatorially located developing world will experience the worst of it, within the near future anyways.

The report predicts that recent improvements in the HDI (Human Development Index) of these regions will be halted or reversed. South Asia and Subsaharan Africa are singled out by the report as likely to see the most significant drops in living standards. Among the most notable of its predictions, the report says that the number of people living in extreme poverty in the world could increase by up to 3 billion by 2050. And the regular environmental disasters occurring by then would then effectively stop these people from working their way out of poverty.

Ignoring environmental concerns will only add to economic costs in the long run.