States form team to study climate change problems

A high tide energized by storm surges washes across Ejit Island in Majuro Atoll, Marshall Islands on March 3, 2014, causing widespread flooding and damaging a number of homes. Officials in the Marshall Islands blamed climate change on March 5, 2014, for severe flooding in the Pacific nation's capital Majuro which has left 1,000 people homeless. PHOTO | GIFF JOHNSON

What you need to know:

  • The initiative aims to examine the economic benefits and costs of acting on climate change

ADDIS ABABA

A new international initiative dubbed ‘Global Commission and New Climate Economy’, was launched on Thursday in Addis Ababa.

It aims to examine the economic benefits and costs of acting on climate change.

The commission comprises seven countries from across the world - Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Speaking on why the seven countries came together to form the initiative, Mr Jeremy Oppenheim, programme director for the New Climate Economy (NCE) said: “I think the seven countries came together because they actually have a tradition of working together on these issues.”

He added: “It is a comfortable club of countries that shared a set of advances about green growth. NCE is the Commission’s project aiming to provide independent and authoritative evidence on the relationship between actions which can strengthen economic performance and those which reduce the risk of climate change.”

It is stated that 14 leading economists from across the world including Nobel Prize winners are included in the advisory board of the Commission while 21 organisations such as the World Bank are partners.

“The new climate economy is part of a major new project to collect the evidence on the economic risks and opportunities of tackling climate challenge and understanding where to find the core benefits for health and development,” said Greg Dorey, British Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti speaking at the launch of the project.