Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Bloomberg, China and India would need to spend $21 Trillion of their own money to save the world from Climate Change; enough money to build an entire fleet of starships. Though doing nothing about climate change means we’ll only be 434% richer by the year 2100.
The Cost of Cutting Carbon Is Sure to Shock Investors
Like any major economic event, getting to net-zero emissions will bring investment opportunities. But as is often the case, initial enthusiasm may soon give way to disappointment. By Gary Shilling +Get Alerts6 December 2021, 22:00 GMT+10
The goal of net-zero carbon by 2050 is almost certain to be drastically curtailed by its costs and lack of feasibility.
The International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental body, estimates that the world needs to invest $115 trillion in clean technologies such as solar and wind power and electric vehicles to limit global warming since 1900 to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement that was signed by 195 countries.
Much of the reduction would have to come in India and China, which would need to invest $21 trillion to overhaul transportation and construction while building nuclear, wind and solar facilities to reach zero net carbon emissions by 2060, according to the Wall Street Journal. But 57% of China’s energy consumption in 2020 was supplied by coal, and its consumption of that commodity is forecast to rise 6% from 2020 to 2025. With coal-mining a big employer in China, coal power plants heavily indebted and electric power needed for economic growth, the nation is reluctant to phase out coal before the 2040s. Coal supplies half of India’s energy needs and its share of world coal consumption is expected to rise from 11% to 14% in 2030.
…
The United Nations estimates that even if no country does anything to slow global warming, the annual damage in 2100 would be the equivalent of a 2.6% cut in global GDP. Since the UN expects the average person to be 450% richer in 2100 than today, the average falls only to 434% if the temperature continues to rise unimpeded. Relative to better health and economic growth, the effects of climate change are minimal.
…
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-06/climate-change-carbon-reduction-costs-will-turn-off-investors
I can’t help thinking China and India might find other uses for that kind of money.
Where do I get the “fleet of starships” estimate from? Back in the 1950s, the Manhattan Project wanted to find a peaceful use for atomic bombs. One of the solutions they came up with was to use atomic bombs to power a spaceship. The most powerful design could have been used to launch a manned mission to Alpha Centauri – at a cost of around $2 trillion in today’s dollars (look up “Momentum Limited” on the Project Orion website).
Of course $2 trillion only buys China and India an impulse drive, so even a short interstellar journey takes over a century. But $21 Trillion is 10x the cost of a base starship build. Who knows, maybe the additional $19 trillion buys you a warp drive.
Or they could spend $21 trillion creating a new energy system which delivers no significant benefit over their existing energy system. Or building world class armed services. Or making that AI or nuclear breakthrough both India and China are spending big to achieve.
What a tough choice.
“I’ll take ‘Things that will never happen’ for $800, Alex”…
It’s going to cost you a heck of a lot more than $800 if you are a Westerner.
Without a doubt China and India will spend the money, Because the Paris Climate Accord, Rich Countries promised to invest in Developing Countries Green Energy projects. 🙂
Want to achieve net zero emissions?
Elementary. Stop breathing.
Time to tell China what it must do has gone by and might not come back any time soon.
“According to Bloomberg, China and India would need to spend $21 Trillion of their own money to save the world from Climate Change;”
Bloomberg has only damaged his own reputation by reporting on something that has not the least chance of happening.Divide this figure by a thousand and the idiocy isn’t reduced one iota.
What is most troubling is that those who would lead us are so totally divorced from reality.
I don’t think they’ll go for that.
However, there does seem to be a concerted effort to make sure as few as possible ever take their first breath…
Better hope that “Nuke Drive” has the proper shielding. To speed up, the explosions happen behind you and you leave the RAD cloud behind. But to slow the booms must be in front of you and you travel Through the RAD cloud
How much more shielding would you need above that already required for solar and cosmic radiation? I don’t recall the final velocity of the hypothetical Orion Starship, but the “ambient” gets quite a bit worse at even a modest fraction of light speed.
Not endorsing the boom-boom motor, but a fusion drive with a magnetosphere would do the job. Relativistic is a whole new spacetime!
Ha silly Bryan, just deploy a parachute.
WTF…
Way Too Funny
I suppose you could deploy a Solar Sail to use as a Solar Brake
No, no. You forgot to define your speed to be zero before each boom. So in any case you move away from the RAD.
Well, Trump named his successful vaccine program Warp Speed, a bit late though.
A few Trillion would fund a global Warp Speed, urgently needed to combat this COVID serial killer – surely cheaper than locking the entire economy down again and again.
Bloomberg, Sir Bloomberg that is, is merely echoing what Marc Carney said at FLOP26 – ruthless,relentless focused NetZero for $100 TRILLION.
That went out with Sharma’s whimper, not a bang. China declined the invitation. India did make an appearance.
So Bloomberg, stuck in a Carney vinyl track is at a loss, a big loss.
The City of London which Carney represents is not going to get that $100 trillion. So what then is Plan B?
Covid as a mass killer is has nearly run its corse, the mutations involved with viruses are generationally weaker than the ones before . The Omniicrom strain appears to be less lethal than the seasonal flu .
If you resisted the vaccine ….good for you. You avoided all the known side affects, and the unknown consequence in the future for you and your off spring
I never put trust in what the Vlad the Terrible says, but on this occasion maybe he (Russian scientists) may have a point that Omicron virus version of Wuhan virus is natural live poly-vaccine.
Weak virus with as many as 50 mutations, that spreads so fast that it can’t be stopped but might eventually provide the highly desired natural herd poly-immunity against further mutations,
Hope ?
Instead serious medical research and rollout needed. The Greta of COVID did no homework either….
Sez you. Famous last words?
How long will this nonsense about this vaccine messing with genes continue?
I guess it will continue as long as the lie is useful.
Until we defeat this killer, and the spin-off is for many other diseases. Just watch the pharma firms who snored through this….
“A few Trillion would fund a global Warp Speed, urgently needed to combat this COVID serial killer”..
That is a pretty idiotic comment, when it would be much better used to combat Malaria.
Palud kills a lot more than the overhyped, overblown Wuflu (which kills a mere 1-2% and is rapidly mutating into a less & less dangerous variant, just as did the Spanish flu before it)….but hey don’t let facts get in the way eh?
Sez you. There is a pandemic – suck it up!
Now the COVID Greta’s are even worse than the Climate Greta’s – they believe no research or logistics are needed.
It is incredible to see climate sceptics devolve into Greta’s.
Maybe lawful as 2 of the deep pockets are RFK Jr, the anti-vaxxer, and his sister Rory the XR moneybags.
Follow the money trail!
And Prof. Koriko said, mRNA was delveloped first for other diseases, like Malaria and Multiple Sclerosis. There is a huge sector there. All the firms are in a mad rush after being caught napping.
“ Bloomberg: China and India Must Invest $21 Trillion into Green Energy”
And if they don’t?
The biggest hyperinflationary crash anyone could possibly imagine. Sine the last blowout massive liquidity pumping has brought the transatlantic financial system to the point that insane numbers, threats and demands daily froth forth….
Bitcoin cushioned
I know you’re not interested but there ya go
Of course I’m watching Bitcoin, but also Carney and the Central Bankers plans!
How many division of troops does Bloomberg have ?
Less than you’d think
Please, don’t channel Stalin.
Stalin said that about the Pope when it was suggested that the Church would prefer him to stop persecuting Christians.
It should be noted that the Roman Catholic Church still exists. The Soviet Union, not so much.
And it wasn’t a contest of divisions that broke them.
One major activity of the Soviet Union was to seed sleeper and political agents throughout the western societies. The Soviet Union finally collapsed because it ran out of reliable people to assign to those foreign positions; there was no one left to run things at home. Thus we now have all these journalists, politicians, “teachers”, “scientists” and watermelon activists doing their assigned duties tearing down western civilization.
All the Queen’s Horses and all the Queens’s Men, – but they could not put Humpty together again!
Uncle Joe will send them to bed without any dinner…
Bloomberg apparently thinks that spending more money on wind and solar will somehow make them practical. Texas discovered last February just how well wind and solar work in still air and freezing rain.
Yesterday the import site on Harbor Island, Corpus Christi channel, was the smallest in blades and support structures that I have seen in years, offloading bulkhead populated by three Crowley offshore work boats, don’t know of any offshore wind outfits, probably a solar panel here and there. Ercot populated with out-of-staters, Texans, at least us historically, knew about wind and sun.
When you say Texas, you should be sure to differentiate between the citizens and the politicians.
And yet they are investing in coal, gas and nuclear. Funny how that works.
.. except in the US, where Climate zealots are hoping for a miracle to happen.
I sense a slow awakening to the absurd cost of Net Zero by people interested and invested in the economy. Now I’m waiting for the obvious backlash of “is it even necessary?” When faced with the prospect of losing their wealth even if it’s to save the planet the natural reaction from those vested will be to push back. It should be easier to convince people to keep their fortunes than to squander it on a nebulous claim no matter how dire it’s claimed to be.
Net Zero is only for losers that have no say in the matter. The rest have already made a choice to ignore or fake it from the start.
Don’t count on a time less than 30 years away for sanity to prevail. The leaders then will be of the generation going to college now, rioters and looters , BLM and Antifa. Hopefully they grow out of it. I have been actively involved in climate for30 years, researching for published authors, and teaching it at several levels . The absurdity has not slackened once, and I havnt seen many signs of it slacking .
Just as in the nineties politicians make promises to the people while making their cronies prosperous .
Its the “crisis” of all times and it also is the greatest money cow ever created
Assuming there were $21 trillion or $115 trillion, the damage to the environment from the mining required to support the required solar and wind generating materials would be devastating.
Aircraft carriers, submarines, and hypersonic missiles more likely.
The cost arguments scare me, because who can really grasp the significance of trillions, it is always tempting for politicians to sign-up for virtue, and hope that nobody explains exactly what a trillion means.
The feasibility argument works best for me, most people can grasp the absurdity of the notion that a new nuclear power station could be built every week for the next 30 years.
To count to one million at 1 per second would take just over 11 and a half days; no eating, resting or sleeping. to get to one billion takes about 31 years and 9 months; we long time married people know what a billion seconds feels like.
To count to one trillion would take 31,710 years; 15 and a bit times longer than the Christian Era or nearly 3 times as much as the time since the last ice age. Over 1000 generation . If the USA had borrowed $1,000,000 every day since Christ was a lad they still would have borrowed a trillion dollars.
What is the US national debt now $31 trillion? Boy oh boy somebody has been working very hard to get there.
A dollar bill is~ 15cm long. The distance earth to sun is 15 trillion cm, so laid end to end, a ribbon of a trillion dollar bills would reach to the sun. Yeah, a trillion bucks is a lot
Agreed. But the insanity of Central Bankers is starkly apparent when one looks at the $15 QUADRILLION nominal derivative debt and they think $100 TRILLION is enough!
Derivative paper is the financial basement foundation – it is actually fissile!
” who can really grasp the significance of trillions “
There are numerous sites that try to make a visual sense of this concept.
One example:
How much is a trillion dollars?
I’d settle for 1/2 trillion.
All things “green” might just fizzle out by next spring in Europe. Head of Trafigura Jeremy Weir says there is just not enough nat gas to take Europe through this winter. And beeing one of those right after solar Minimum of this cycle it might just be an extra cold one too….
Seems he might have a point.
Natural Gas EU Dutch TTF (EUR) 98.30 +2.417 (+2.52%)
Except that a few million deaths from the cold will, unconditionally, be blamed on lack of enough installed solar and wind power.
Gary Shilling is a very sensible guy. He’s been very successfully in long bonds for four decades. Amazed that Bloomberg let him talk on the prospects of ‘net zero’.
People here seem to be of the opinion that China would not be interested in building starships. Perhaps they have better uses for the money.
I think the situation is more subtle.
If any other country were to build and demonstrate an Enterprise class starship, the Chinese would surely be interested. Certainly they have cloned or copied just about every militarily useful item on the planet. Something as dramatic as a starship would be no different.
But one must be careful.
The first of the Enterprise class starships was, of course, NCC-1701.
Over the course of time, Star Trek fans obtained and released the deck-by-deck floor plans of the vessel. A surprising detail emerged.
There were no bathrooms. At all.
An overlooked engineering detail.
This is so nuts – I quote Scotty – Beam me up Captain, I just came down for a p*iss.
Bathrooms were un-necessary. The bodily waste was beamed out & dumped into deep space at poop deck speed.
Both China and India want what Bloomberg is smoking.
Can you smoke crack $tock$ ? Mike Bloomberg loves the US-China “green” trade, super profits.
It looks like China & Russia will need to create their own version of DMI to monitor Arctic Ice.
FROM TONY HELLER’S BLOG:
Rapidly Disappearing Arctic Ice
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/12/rapidly-disappearing-arctic-ice/
I used to think DMI was a fairly straight shooter, like UAH, but if this is what they are doing, DMI is garbage. (sigh) Tony also dad caught the NSIDC doing the same thing and blocking access to the old maps on archive.org with a robots.txt file.
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/12/past-nsidc-data-tampering/
*The amount of data alteration is getting scarier and scarier each day, IMHO
** Also, this might need a duplicate (ht) article on WUWT so that the shenanigans at DMI are adequately documented, widely distributed and can be easily referenced in the future.
That is brazen data change. I was only thinking the other day that the ice volume being above average will upset the powers that be. Wonder what excuse they will dream up.
Generally, the cause of changes to the sea ice can be directly observed on earthnullschool. It is almost always associated with surface wind changes that cause warmer air flows to cross into the Arctic region. In this case surface winds in the North Atlantic started moving into the Arctic around 8 days ago. That led to the decline in sea ice, and to a slight warming above the trend line as seen on DMI. … https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-329.65,78.12,774/loc=-129.443,42.984
Tony Heller is not a reliable source for anything
When do any real signs of catastrophic global warming have to show up to validate the climate crusade?
In another 10years or so?
If there’s nothing more than all of the same mendacious rhetoric in 10 more years don’t they have to shut down their fraud?
You don’t know leftists!! Well, you do now, no, they just keep banging the same drum, that is all they have.
If you look at weather events in the last 6 months it is obvious the signs are already here…
… you will obtain a list of the “extreme” weather events that have occurred around the world over the last 6 months.
See the “Global Summaries” tab of the following link :
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
If you look at the envirowhacko proselytizers on the street corners, you will also see the obvious signs
The End Is Nighy
Your Goose is (John) Cooked
Conspiracies Run Lewandowsky
Listen To What The Mann Says
Just in: old fat new yorker tells India and China how to run their economies.
Oh wow we’ve tricked the Indians into trying to develop strong AI?
I thought they were smarter than that. Let’s hope our descendants aren’t dumb enough to worship whatever blackbox they come up with and present to the world as our machine better.
CNBC had a story on China’s rising food troubles. … https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/chinas-vegetable-prices-surge-30point6percent-in-november-as-food-costs-soar.html
“China’s vegetable prices surge 30.6% in November as food costs soar”
What does a kilo of di-lithium crystals go for?
if it’s a small fortune, believe I can conjure up a stockpile to sell.
See the book ‘Project Orion’ by George Dyson son of English physicist Freeman Dyson who was involved in the project. Fascinating read. Published by Penguin Press 2002 ISBN 0-713-99267-0