With a supposed global climate catastrophe just around the corner, humanity will need to pull together and make use of all kinds of resources in order to battle climate change: technology, innovation, alternative energy, etc. Whichever of these tools prove most effective in the fight, one thing is pretty obvious -- it's going to take a whole lot of money to make any difference.

So, while we are often faced with tons of eco-guilt as a result of our high-consumption, affluent lifestyles in developed countries, there is another side of the coin that we don't hear much about. That's the fact that if the developed world falls into a economic recession, the funding available for addressing environmental issues like climate change will plummet.

With US financial markets reeling from the "credit crisis" and ripples echoing throughout the world economy, we are seeing some really shaky times for investing -- a time where the green investing could be sidelined. According to the World Economic Forum in Geneva, the economic uncertainty forecast for 2008 could make it much more difficult to deal with long-term issues like global warming. As a result of globalism, the interconnectedness of the world's economy -- specialization, out-sourcing, etc. -- makes it highly sensitive to downturns in any one area, especially the US.

Here's a list of risks to watch out for in 2008, outlined by the WEF:

• the falling value of the dollar
• a slow down in Chinese economic growth
• rising taxes in wealthy nations
• falling US and European home prices