The science of climate change, politics, and cost of action and inaction Climate change is a global concern as some of the major pollutants like carbon dioxide, methane, hydro and hydro fluorocarbons etc stand as a significant cause for global warming due to the green house effect where carbon dioxide accounts for three quarters of the human generated global warming effect. These are resultant of increased and rapidly growing human population and increased need for development urbanization, industrialization which has also been evident from the increased use of fossil fuels and other non renewable sources of energy. Secondly the other major cause of concern is that these green house gases are accumulative in nature and the rate at which they accumulate also depends on the earth’s absorption capacity absorption capacity given the fact that the rate at which GHGs are accumulating indicates the fact that they are accumulating way beyond the earth’s absorption capacity. Now as these GHGs accumulate they trap heat and this results in global warming which has a disruptive effect on the natural cycle, geography of the planet, people's lifestyle etc. that is due to global warming there has been a shrinkage of the polar ice caps and a resultant rise in sea levels which implies that many coastal cities get submerged, there has been an increase in permafrost temperatures, changing of precipitation patterns etc, An increase in average temperatures of 4-5 degrees worldwide may result in catastrophic changes such as total melting of polar ice caps, extreme temperatures and weather patterns in different seasons and so on. Thus it important to understand that GHGs are long term in nature, global in origins, a great deal of uncertainty is involved with regard to the end outcome thus the any economic analysis in this area must link risk and uncertainty and the link between economics and ethics in terms of intergenerational policy trade-offs and the role of international policy. So there arises a need for a well articulated policy, here many policies work in terms of targets usually in terms of emission flows, stabilization levels or average temperature increases but the problem is that many of these policies conceals issues pertaining to social and economic outcomes. Generally we can say that economics of risks generally pertain to stock targets while economics of costs and efficiency to a price mechanisms that can achieve these targets. A policy that starts with a 1|Pagprice to target GHGs face two problems one that the price estimates are highly sensitive to the ethical and structural assumptions of the future and secondly there is a risk of major losses from higher stocks than anticipated and since damages rise steeply with stocks formal modeling of these damages can help us provide indicative estimates of overall damages, marginal damages in a way that it can be compared with abatement and marginal abatement costs. Analogous to this a computable general equilibrium model is much more robust than other aggregative economic models but its quantitative results are very sensitive to the assumptions taken and at times they might leave out details that may be important for an equitable economic policy and in doing so as Stern review suggests it misses out on a great deal of the crucial details of the impacts, thus the estimates of marginal social cost of damages provide a very weak foundation for policy. A sound Policy should account for changes in technology, transaction costs, and should have a strong international focus promoting collaboration, equity and reduce global costs. On the international political front G8-G5 summit 2007 has declared a world target reductions in emissions by 50% by 2050, while the United Nations framework convention on climate change (UNFCC) has the Kyoto protocol which specifies limits for developed nations. Also the idea that since developing nations have lower marginal costs they should engage in higher abatement activities has been taken up with reluctance which has been evident in the partial success of the Copenhagen summit in 2009. The cost of action towards addressing climate change is highly time dependant as the GHGs are accumulative and the extent of damages could increase manifold with time, which implies that the present cost of stabilization would be 3-4 es lower than any abatement exercise taken Up in the future, which would include the cost of delay. Although it may be argued that in the near future improved technology like that of geo-engineering can fire particles in the air that keep away solar radiations can help control the climate but such results are not certain and even if they were it could have other effects that we may not be aware of and there would also be a question of would undertake such an activity. If the actions are weak we may reach a stage he risks of high concentral where many changes may become irreversible. Eve ns of GHGs 2[Pagturn out to be low one can still advocate taking action now on the grounds of having a cleaner world to live in. Given the emission targets of close to 50% developed countries might have to have close to zero emissions in major areas like transport and electricity which may not be possible thus reductions need to take place across all sectors. As per the Mc Kinsey bottom up approach to abatement costs we can see that there are many options for reducing emissions that have a negative cost but as abatement costs increase the potential for abatement also increases. Thus a whole range of options should be explored and the replacement or new technology should also be scrutinized as it may be the case that it may have other side effects, thus a right mix of policy is important as a bad policy mix may result in one undertaking more expensive options. So to conclude even if one ends developing improved technology to reverse changes the probability of such eventuality is low and the risk too high as changes are irreversible as compared to taking action now at a relatively moderate cost in return for a cleaner world. 3[Pag