ACCORDING to the third and final report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, although the world is warming rapidly due to greenhouse gas emissions, the solution may be surprisingly cheap.

The report recommends a rapid switch from fossil-based fuels to renewable energy sources.

This new report finds that an ambitious green revolution would shave only two to four per cent off total economic growth over the century, a figure that doesn’t take into account the economic benefits of shifting to clean and green energies.

The panel’s co-chair has said: “It’s actually affordable to triple investment in green energies by 2050 and such a revolution need not break the bank, as some critics of climate change action have warned in the past. Furthermore, it’s not a hair-shirt change of lifestyle and there is space for poorer countries to develop too.”

Such a switch would definitely not include fracking, a process that threatens our water supply. And it promises new jobs, increased efficiency and greater energy price stability.

For these reasons and more, I will vote Green in the EU elections on May 22.

Ginnie Shaw Grunden, Derwent Mews, Osbaldwick, York.