Last week, it was former Republican EPA administrators who spoke out on the need to address manmade global warming. This week, it's the turn of business leaders.

On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of business leaders and former politicians, including President George W. Bush's treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., issued a sharp warning about disastrous economic consequences if manmade global warming is not addressed in the near future. In a new report, the group found that extreme heat and sea level rise will threaten human health and put up to $3.5 billion in property in jeopardy by 2030, with even more severe and expensive impacts to come after that.

The report's findings were based in part on climate science and economic research findings from the Rhodium Group, a consulting firm for the financial industry, and also drew from other recent scientific analyses.

The report was produced by the Risky Business Project, a joint initiative of Paulson, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund manager Thomas Steyer. Though the report is ostensibly nonpartisan, Steyer has said he will put up to $100 million toward electing candidates who favor taking action to address climate change risks — no matter their party.

According to The Huffington Post, the White House will be meeting with leaders of the project later this week as part of its climate policy efforts.

The report was produced by a committee that included Gregory Page, the chairman of Cargill Inc., former treasury secretary Robert Rubin, and former Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.

Here are six key takeaways from the report:

Climate change is not a liberal plot, but more like a predatory "interest-only loan"

Because long-lived greenhouse gases that cause global warming, such as carbon dioxide, remain in the atmosphere for up to 1,000 years, climate change is a cumulative problem. What we emit today will haunt us for centuries. The report highlights this unique aspect of the climate problem, putting it in terms business leaders (and college students struggling with student loans) can relate to.

"By not acting to lower greenhouse gas emissions today, decision-makers put in place processes that increase overall risks tomorrow, and each year those decision-makers fail to act serves to broaden and deepen those risks. In some ways, climate change is like an interest-only loan we are putting on the backs of future generations: They will be stuck paying off the cumulative interest on the greenhouse gas emissions we’re putting into the atmosphere now, with no possibility of actually paying down that “emissions principal.”

At a press conference Tuesday, Paulson told reporters that climate change is a more difficult and risky problem than the 2008 financial crisis, which he dealt with at the Treasury Department. Climate-related risks, he said, “are much more perverse and cruel than we saw with the financial crisis because they accumulate over time, and the longer we wait the worse it gets.”

Sea level rise is going to be extraordinarily expensive, even in the near term.

In just the next 15 years, the report found, higher sea levels combined with storm surge impacts will likely boost the annual average cost of coastal storms along the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico by up to $3.5 billion. "Adding in potential changes in hurricane activity, the likely increase in average annual losses grows to up to $7.3 billion, bringing the total annual price tag for hurricanes and other coastal storms to $35 billion," the report said.

The report found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, by 2050, between $66 to $106 billion of existing coastal property in the U.S. will be below sea level. This would grow to up to $507 billion by 2100.

Image: The Risky Business Project

Property losses will be highest along the Southeast and Atlantic coasts, the report found. Other research has shown that the epicenter of the sea level rise problem is the state of Florida, where tens of billions in prized coastal real estate could be underwater by the end of the century.

Extreme heat is not just uncomfortable, it's also a drag on the economy

The report found that by 2050, the average American will experience between 27 and 50 days each year with temperatures higher than 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which would be three times the average during the past 30 years. By the end of the century, there could be as many as 100 days each summer over 95 degrees.

This added heat could cause labor productivity to wither, with a projected decline in the productivity of outdoor workers of 3%. It may also increase heat-related deaths, the report says.

Image: The Risky Business Project

Midwestern and Southern farmers' losses could be Northern farmers' gain

Unless emissions decline significantly, the report predicts that national production of commodity crops, including corn, soy, wheat and cotton, will decline by 14% by midcentury, and 42% by the end of the century. This could have major repercussions for global food supplies, hitting at the same time as populations continue to soar in the developing world.

The report found that on a large scale, national and global food systems "are resilient," but that there are risks for vulnerable individual farming communities.

"A defining characteristic of agriculture in the U.S. is its ability to adapt. But the adaptation challenge going forward for certain farmers in specific counties in the Midwest and South will be significant. Without adaptation, some Midwestern and Southern counties could see a decline in yields of more than 10% over the next 5 to 25 years should they continue to sow corn, wheat, soy and cotton, with a 1-in-20 chance of yield losses of these crops of more than 20%."

A hotter country will require more power

As average temperatures increase and extreme heat events become even more prevalent as they are now, the report projects that the U.S. will need to build up to 95 gigawatts of new power generation capacity within the next 25 years to power our air conditioners and other systems. This works out to about 200 coal or natural gas-fired power plants, which is ironic, since burning fossil fuels for energy is the major cause of global warming in the first place.

Companies are under increasing pressure from shareholders and their workforce

Bloomberg told reporters that companies are now under greater pressure to disclose and address their climate change risks as more people become aware of the economic risk involved. In addition, young people seeking to work at major corporations, Bloomberg said, want to work for companies that are taking action to address climate change. Chief executive officers, Bloomberg said, are being held accountable for new things every day, and that it's conceivable that if a company has a major loss due to a climate change-related extreme weather event, that CEO could be fired.

“If they are not prepared, they better have a good retirement plan,” Bloomberg said.

The Risky Business project commissioned a more technical report on the economic consequences of global warming, which was carried out by the Rhodium Group. Rhodium also partnered with Risk Management Solutions, a catastrophe-modeling company.

A separate, international effort under the auspices of the United Nations will analyze the global economic impacts of climate change in a report due for release in September.

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