By Alan Zarembo, LA Times Staff Writer

A United Nations panel on Friday released its m ost comprehensive strategy to avoid the catastrophic effects of global warming, but experts said political and economic realities likely doom it to failure. Although more than 100 countries backed the report, experts said its call for a global, multi-trillion-dollar effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is unrealistic.  The strategy to cap greenhouse gas emissions could cost 3% of the world’s GDP.

“It’s not realistic from a political standpoint, and it’s not realistic because those targets are incredibly expensive,” said Robert Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale University. The Bush administration quickly denounced the restrictions as too expensive.  “It would cause a global recession,” said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Our goal is reducing emissions and growing the economy,” he said during a news conference in Bangkok.  See full story here