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Missing Climate Goals Could Cost the World $20 Trillion (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: There are trillions of reasons for the world to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5C, the aspirational target laid out in the Paris climate agreement, according to a new study. If nations took the necessary actions to meet that goal, rather than the increasingly discussed 2C objective, there's a 60 percent chance it would save the world more than $20 trillion, according to new work published this week in Nature by scientists at Stanford. That figure is far higher than what most experts think it will cost to cut emissions enough to achieve the 1.5C target. Indeed, one study put the price tag in the hundreds of billions of dollars. If temperatures rise by 3C, it will knock out an additional 5 percent of GDP. That's the entire planet's GDP.
Wouldn't cutting emissions 40% - 60% in the first world cause hundreds of millions or even billions of deaths in places dependent on western aid? Or is that part of the plan?
This commentary published by The Wall Street Journal, written by Fred Singer, claims that warming (and therefore greenhouse gas emissions) has no effect on global sea level rise. Although Singer concedes the physical fact that water expands as its temperature increases, he claims that this process must be offset by growth of Antarctic ice weasels.
Scientists who reviewed this opinion piece explained that it is contradicted by a wealth of data and research. Singer bases his conclusion entirely on a cherry-picked comparison of sea level rise 1915-1945 and a single study published in 1990, claiming a lack of accelerating sea level rise despite continued warming. But in fact, modern research utilizing all available data clearly indicates that sea level rise has accelerated, and is unambiguously the result of human-caused global warming.
You mean either "free up $X to be spent on something else" or "lower global spending by $X" or some mix of the two.
The spending to prepare for Y2K should never have been necessary, but it kept a lot of people employed.
If we had done time correctly back in the day, either that money would've been freed up for other things or it would not have been spent. If it didn't get spent, the economy would not have been as robust.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Who had them last? Did Trump misplace them? Has anyone checked Hillary's servers?
C'mon people. Those things are very expensive.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
$20 trillion is a lot of jobs created and with more people dying from the effects of climate change that could really boost wages /s
Maybe the costs could vastly exceed 20 trillion if we have to relocate or rebuild all cities affected by 10m of vertical ocean rise. Maybe it could cost the world 20 trillion dollars short term. But that's at least two quarters away or someone else's problem so it's completely unimportant. #CEOlogic.
I haven't looked into this particular analysis at all, but this is exactly what we should be doing. Rather than making arguments that humans suck and are destroying life-giving Gaia, or trying to scare people with horror stories of runway warming, we should be carefully, rationally, constructing the best possible estimates of the cost of global warming under various scenarios, and then comparing them with the best possible estimates of the cost of various mitigation strategies, including not only cutting carbon emissions (which requires a sub-field of analyses to figure out the best and least impactful way to motivate cutting of carbon production) but also schemes to recapture carbon and schemes to directly cool the planet's climate other ways, such as orbital sunscreens to reduce insolation. And at the same time we should continue investing in climate and economic modeling to refine the estimates.
And we should act on the strategy that produces the best outcome, according to those estimates, even as we continue working to revise the estimates -- and adjust the strategy aprpropriately, in cautious, incremental steps.
This is the rational, Bayesian approach to the problem. And it's the right approach even in the (extremely unlikely) case that the warming isn't anthropogenic, or even if the planet isn't really even warming! Act on the best information you have, cautiously and adjusting for your level of confidence in that information, and keep working to get better information and adjust your approach accordingly. This is rational, logical, and the approach most likely to yield the most favorable outcomes. "Most likely" and "most favorable" are key words; there are no guarantees, but maximizing the probability of good outcomes is the the best way forward.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Mean atmospheric O2 - 130 % of modern level.
Mean atmospheric CO2 content - . 1950 ppm. 7 times pre-industrial level.
Mean surface temperature - 16.5 C. 3 C above modern level.
I HATE cold weather. I would say this would be a better climate to live in.
The fossil fuel industry and the politicians in their stranglehold for campaign money don't care about the cost everyone has to pay. They care not a whit about the voters and customers yet to be born.
Greed is the root of all evil.
"Could" is the keyword here... Makes the entire statement completely unfalsifiable and thus unscientific.
15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Pretty sure the OP was aiming for sarcasm.
Sure, sure. You want to motivate the people with the money and power to do something about this? Tell them they'll lose money and power if they don't. Aspects of humanity like this are what make me feel like our entire species just plain sucks; you can't get any action out of people with "this is the right thing to do", you have to frame it as "this is what's in it for you if you do this".
I remember my old tome Fundamentals of Astronautics. An invaluable reference. Authors include guys like von Braun, Bussard, Tsien, and Phil Bono - legendary geniuses in the field all of them. I also remember the chapter using the same analytical techniques for the rockets being used as diviners of economic costs of said rockets. It struck me as odd and kind of silly - sad even - that such smart people were so confounded by economics. All their rocket science is as good today as it was then; but these guys were estimating manned Mars missions costing ~$6 billion in "1990 dollars" among other crystal-ball gems.
So here's another paper, by not-so-genius scientists, regarding a far-less understood subject than rockets, making economic prognostications decades and decades out. Based on long-term weather trends. This is stupid.
I remember about 15 years ago where they alarmists were telling us that it would cost $50 Trillion to implement climate change mitigations. If it is only going to cause $20 T not to do so, it would appear to be a good deal just to do nothing.
Anyway, we can stop talking about it, because the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, driving rollerskate cars that will not survive a collision with a squirrel, driving electric cars that are made of unobtanium for most people with average incomes, not driving except to go to work and back and not even then if you can stuff 18 people into one car - yeah, these are all exaggerations for effect, but the bottom line is an approach to make life less worth living, so will not happen as the general public won't put up with it, which is why this approach has failed so far.
And it doesn't matter that America has pulled out of the Paris deal, we will still continue to set records for clean energy and CO2 mitigation via natural gas and solar and wind. Someday we may even get a handle on electric cars. But what America will not be doing is shipping trillions of dollars out of the country to pay for somebody else's climate compliance. They can live in caves and drive rollerskates. The US will not.
The debate is over in the electorate. The only people still going on about "doing something" about the "climate" are academics and elites on the losing end of the political spectrum.
We're not giving up our cars. We're not being moved into your high density ghettos. We're not accepting the international dysfunction of suffering all the costs while Asia and other "emerging" economies skate. None of these dreams of yours are going to happen.
If you want to achieve your low-carbon goals then every solution you propose MUST serve the living standards and economic growth of the citizens of Western nations. Nothing else is feasible. This is true no matter how much you hate it. It's true whether or not it suits whatever collection of ethics you've been trained with. It will remain true even as you age yourself prematurely with the anxiety or terror you suffer over these matters.
To be fair, it always was an economic problem at its root, as are most such problems. Does it cost more to avoid it or to fix it? The strictly emotional appeal is what politicized it (and therefore, turned a lot of people off) in the first place.
Hundreds of millions to several billion people are just going to stand still and drown as the water creeps up at an inch per year? Unfortunately I can't tell if you're serious or snark, that's how insane the AGW crowd has become.
I would guess that at least 10 billion people will die over the next 100 years, probably more.
How much money is going into Loch Ness monster research? It's ONE guy. Pick another example.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
It "used" to be deniers saying there was no warming, but that didn't seem to work, so then they're saying it's natural causes.
It "used" to be deniers saying it's natural causes, but that didn't seem to work, so now they're saying it's humans causing warming but it's not going to get that bad.
Both sides are guilty of getting things wrong (failures are built in to the scientific method) and overstating the effect (either too much or too little). The media inevitably injects emotion to get eyeballs. You have to read between the lines.
The thoughtful have always realized that humans are causing warming, have been for most of the last 150 years, and will continue for the next 50 or so, when hopefully technology and social pressure will finally tip the needle. The warming is locked in for longer. There will be economic downsides and upsides, and some people will suffer and some will profit.
I come at it from the prospective of, we each need to have a conversation with our grandchildren in 50 years, where the trends for CO2 and warming continue, and can we say we did as much as we could to give them the same kind of world we thrived in. Arguments that "the environment could be better!" miss the point, we know we have a great environment now. It's selfish and myopic to assume that the environment in 50 years (assuming warming trends continue) will be better due to technology or what have you.
How do I edit my sig.
It *used* to be dire predictions getting ever closer and more dire, but that didn't seem to work, so now they're transitioning to monetary measures.
Errr no. The dire predictions are still dire. The only difference is where the research is being put into now that people are attempting to cost up measures to prevent us from royally screwing things up any further.
Or maybe you prefer us to not research the economics and go back to researching climate change, ... because you know... is it even real? Is the science even "settled"?
You didn't learn to recognize 'weasel words' in college? You should get your money back, you learned nothing useful.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The ozone hole is not bullshit.
Worldwide action to eliminate CFCs in aerosol cans and refrigerators has done much to alleviate the problem. Success at reducing the problem does not mean the problem was bullshit to begin with.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
"... the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives - living in cold houses in winter and boiling houses in the summer, ..."
Nope, this is just your nihilistic attitude towards the subject at hand. You've decided this is a zero sum game and that you aren't going to be the loser. Well your myopic attitude is your problem. Not someone else's problem!
You see there were lots of right wing nay-sayers suggesting that programs that supported home insulation upgrades were inappropriate and wrong. "You can't pick winners and losers" they said. "Government grant programs are bad" they said. "It's all Al Gore and Big Government, and Climate Change isn't real" they said.
Except, home insulation programs are one specific example of how lives will not be diminished. How homes will not be "cold in the winter" and "boiling in the summer". How to avoid zero sum nihilism.
You see you are a zero sum nihilist, and you want the rest of the world to be as well. Good luck with that, but don't be surprised if the world chooses a different direction. And when they do, I'm sure we'll hear you whining about that too. "Well, if the Deep State hadn't silenced us, we could have won at the expense of everyone else!!! Damn you Al Gore!"
Sad. Pathetic. Small thoughts for small minds.
It *used* to be dire predictions getting ever closer and more dire, but that didn't seem to work, so now they're transitioning to monetary measures.
You are an idiot. There never where "predictions" like that. Only newspaper head lines.
Everybody with the simplest grasp of science knows the turning point is now, and was not 20 30 or 50 years ago. And 50 years ago everyone new till roughly 2000 not much would have happened. So why would they make honest predictions before that point in time?
And why exactly are you so dumb that you believed them in case you stumbled over one randomly?
The big change climate is now over a timeframe of the next 100 years, depending how quick we stop it, or the next 300 years if we fail to stop it.
Calling that a "religion" is the dumbest thing a man can do, idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Whenever someone claims it could happen. That means they are guessing and generally to prove a agenda or belief of some sorts. Yeah the world could end tomorrow too. But not likely.
You "could" get into a car accident. Does that mean you don't need to wear a seat belt?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Even if America remained part of Paris accord, it would not matter. The reason is that China, and other nations are growing their emissions well beyond what the entire west generates. Until additional new coal plants are stopped, and ideally, all fossil fuel plants, we we're going to lose. And China is adding 700 new coal plants just over the next couple of years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Which is why the world is gonna fry in 2038. The Y2K problem was way overblown, so the 2038 problem must be as well. Why allocate resources to fix it?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I hope I do not understand "If temperatures rise by 3 C, it will knock out an additional 5 percent of GDP. That’s the entire planet’s GDP." If an additional 5% of GDP gets you to 100% (entire planet) then that is saying the lower temp are at 95% and the additional 5% would make it 100%. What are they trying to say?
At one end of the climate science buffet we have the reliable, traditional cuisine: that CO2 and methane (and water vapour) function as greenhouse gasses, that burning an aggregate trillion barrels of fossil fuel is enough to make a difference on a planetary scale, that we are presently in a warming cycle (of what duration, not yet certain), that certain mitigations are already cost-effective (solar roofs in California, minimizing hyper-disposable electronic goods), that the ocean is a carbon sink, and that this does result in increased acidification (which is at least a short-term stressor to shellfish and coral with a potentially dire outcome).
To argue otherwise on any of these points at this juncture is to fly your kook flag. But then as you move along, each additional "scientific" hors d'oeuvre becomes increasingly sketchy, culminating in leftist kook-caviar castles of sand.
By the time scientific economists (is there such a thing?) start spouting off about "trillions" of this or that (in notoriously slippery dollar units), the coefficient of ass-pull is no longer compatible with western civilization's august and respectable legacy of hard science.
I've been reading a number of books lately about the history of science and technology (Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex, Turing's Cathedral, various books by Tim Wu). Every one of these books has commented, either implicitly or straight out, on the nearly universal truth: the better the scientist, the worse the budget estimate.
There were a few skilled scientific administrators in the mix (Lawrence, Oppenheimer, Veblen) but these were the exceptions, not the norm. Those were bad budget estimates without even wading into the N=1 global prognostication quagmire, or adding an actual economist to the mix.
Did you mother teach you that two wrongs make a right?
Because that's the only feasible way Ms. Geophysicist and Mr. Economist in glorious union are going to lick the platter clean.
https://www.skepticalscience.c...
Which success? https://www.nature.com/article...
I once strongly believed in this, but to my left is a computer that is entirely capable of doing nuclear bomb simulation. I'm curious why there's never any models given that I can simply run.
There is.
http://theconversation.com/mak...
https://opensource.gsfc.nasa.g...
Coastal real estate is probably worth $125+ trillion. And that doesn't include cost of dealing with migratory pressures, fighting wars over resources etc.
Then there's how much people would pay to avoid that misery ie quality of life value.
$20 trillion seems pretty low to me.
Here's how they calculated it though:
http://sci-hub.tw/https://www....
"Anyway, we can stop talking about it, because the proposed actions always involve diminishing everyone's lives"
If you need to drive a gas guzzler then you don't have a life.
Modern farming is just a way of converting oil into food.
It takes 7X more oil energy to bring food to your table than you get from eating it.
At the turn of the 19th century more than 9 out of 10 people were involved in farming and feeding themselves and the other person. Now, less than 1 percent feed the other 99+% and they use machines powered by oil & coal to do it. Alternative forms of energy do not have the energy density of fossil fuels, and cannot replace them for planting, growing, harvesting, transporting and processing foods that end up on your grocery shelves. To take fossil fuel out of the equation is to condemn hundreds of millions of people to die of starvation. That would be criminal. On the other hand, at the rate we are consuming fossil fuels, if the world were a ball of oil and we had a source of oxygen to burn it at the accelerating rate we have now, that ball would be burned up in 450 years, give or take a few. Long before then humanity will be returning to animal labor to grow food for those who survive the transition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Here's one for $44 trillion, but that is 2014, just 4 years ago. The figure I heard was what the AGW alarmists were saying about 15 years ago.
https://www.technologyreview.c...
Hey, here's one for $90 T:
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
If it's only going to cost $20T to fix the effects of AGW, why would be spend $44, $50, or $90 trillion to prevent it?
America, at least, is locked in a battle between climate change people and deniers. Much of the heat of the battle is being generated by the shared assumption of most of the battling parties that the government must be parsimonius and whatever taxes or restraints are applied will be hard on poor people or it will be hard on rich oil business people.
Lets consider an approach that is 90 degrees different for both parties. The given fact is we must substantially reduce our oil use. I propose we make engaging in a much less carbon emitting activity economically attractive. We pay people to not drive their car for commuting. Suppose you and another person ride with a third person on your morning commute to work. The commute takes longer so we arrange to pay the rider an additional sum to make ride sharing to work a no-brainer economic advantage. The economics are like this: You don't spend $4 on gas. That is $4 of retained wealth. The sponsoring agency pays you another $4 in an Ethereum currency that can be spent on solar panels or an electric car. The program designers raise the no-Co2 bonus until virtually everybody chooses to participate.
Using the payment model, we go after social institutions with related bonus programs. For the program designers, the problem is to figure out how many tons of
CO2 not emitted per program dollar are being accomplished. We pick all the low hanging CO2 consumption activities. Deniers and acceptors alike can enjoy the incentive to switch to a low CO2 emission society, while increasing one's personal wealth or ability to overcome adversity.
If America is such the hero for shutting down coal, why do you still have more coal plants per person than China does?
Why are China's per capita emissions still less than half America's?
China still plans to increase its coal-fired power plants to almost 1,100 gigawatts, which is over three times the coal-fired capacity of the United States.
From your own post...
So China in the future when it builds all those plants will still be less than America per person...
China has over 4 times the population in case you 'forgot'.
Stop shooting yourself in the foot Windy. It's no fun if you are this incompetent.
Just more lies from Windy the king of lies
Actually, China's master plan calls for 1.7 tw of coal. And as it said, your nation did not cancel to clean up the air or lower emissions. Instead, they did it for lack of growth, specifically, because your nation's economy was tanking in 2015-2016.
You have been told numerous times coal has peaked back in 2013.
Here is the actual plan for China's energy.
Yet it is still noteworthy that policy makers seem to be even more determined to squeeze coal’s share in the country’s energy mix, lowering its 2020 percentage in primary energy consumption from 62 percent to 58 percent, and capping its consumption at 4.1 Gt (which means roughly at 2014 levels).
You are correct Windy, there are other very dirty countries as well, it's not just America. But I'm specifically calling out your cheerleading for America, and your lies about China.
Still waiting for you to point out a single lie of mine Windy...
Then again, it COULD cost 'The World' $10 Trillion. Or $10 million. Or $417.25. Or $5.99 + tax. Millineals are the most travelled generation in history, mostly via air travel, yet they care so very deeply about global warming. It's the generation that is "too selfish to have kids", yet they are deeply worried about the climate issues my great grandchildren will be dealing with. It makes perfect sense. Climate Change is a tidy moral panic with which to divide the haves from the have nots. Along with gay marriage, transgender bathrooms, well, pretty much gender anything. It's one moral panic after another, after another after another. Moral panics were once the domain of the reglious right, and those of lesser intellect. Now the most educated segment of our population are it's primary victims, and since their ruling-class masters have declared a moratorium on calling out hypocricy (well, unless you're on of their uncool opponents), they appear to be completely unaware of it. "Do as we say, not as we do". Of course that won't fly. Then again, it's not supposed to. These issues aren't supposed to be solved. They're supposed to indicate suitable guillibility and/or willfull suspension of disbelief to serve as a political base, not to mention, a recruiting tool for the party faithful. It doesn't matter what you do, only what you say. Hell, I have the lowest carbon footprint of anyone I know, but nobody cares about that. What am I saying? That's their only concern. Some emergeny. You think if there's was a Tsunai headed this way, anyone would care what others believed? Hell no, you'd be heading for higher ground, not yapping about it. Study after study show that the more affluent, the higher the carbon footprint. Climate Change's biggest proponents, are those who cause it the most. But they care. Oh how they care. And their just so dang mad that you don't care too. Why, if you had any concern for the planet, you'd round up every college kid who jets home for Christmas, jets to Florida for Spring Break, jets to Europe for the summer,, and you would jail them for the good of the planet. Be careful what you ask for, folks, you just might get it. Keep em distracted. Don't let them see that barbwire condom going in their collective ass from the political class. No, divide and conquer is the name of the game. Us vs. them. Climate Change vs. Natural Variaton. Right vs. Wrong. Cool vs. Lame. Good vs. Evil. Affluent vs. Working Class. College vs. Military. Enlightened vs. Uncouth. Ethan vs. Cletus. o Wise vs. Ignorant. Scientists who publish research and have it "peer-reviewed" thus "settling science" vs. more uncertainty and more fear of the unknown. At least with Climate Change, you know just how much the ocean is going to rise ... and when!
So, which side do you want to be on?
Come on. It feels so good to get those nods of approval from those higher up the social ladder than ourselves.
Even better, so long as you claim to believe in Climate Change, you can actually DO whatever you want ... including killing the planet!
What do you have to lose?
With the ongoing eruption of the volcano in Hawaii, and with recent signs of Mt St Helens possibly activating, along with the volcanoes in Japan and the Aleutians that have gone active, the CO2 reduction climate goals of the Paris Accord have already become a moot point. The volcano in Hawaii alone has already expelled enough CO2 that we'd need to increase reduction by a further 8x and extend that reduction time another 100 years.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.