Essay by Eric Worrall
But Climate ACTION is reportedly costing Germany €1.5 billion per DAY – €440 billion between February and December last year.
Climate change to cost Germany up to $960bn by 2050, study finds
Report released during discussion on how Berlin could cut greenhouse gas emissions in challenging sectors like transportation.
6 Mar 2023
Climate change could cost Germany up to 900 billion euros ($960bn) in cumulative economic damage by mid-century, a new study shows, as Europe’s biggest economy searches for ways to cut that bill.
The analysis by the economic research company Prognos, the Institute for Economic Structures Research and the Institute for Ecological Economic Research was released on Monday as Berlin works on a climate adaptation strategy soon to be presented by the environment ministry.
Germany’s economy and environment ministries cited the study as showing that extreme heat, drought and floods could cost from 280 billion euros ($300bn) to 900 billion euros between 2022 and 2050, depending on the extent of global warming.
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Climate change and extreme weather have already cost Germany at least 145 billion euros ($155bn) from 2000 to 2021, 80 billion euros ($85bn) of which were in the past five years alone, including the 2021 floods in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the economy ministry said.
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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/6/climate-change-to-cost-germany-up-to-900-bln-euros-by-2050-study
The claim that Germany is haemorrhaging money because of their green energy push;
Germany’s half-a-trillion dollar energy bazooka may not be enough
Story by By Christoph Steitz
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany is bleeding cash to keep the lights on. Almost half a trillion dollars, and counting, since the Ukraine war jolted it into an energy crisis nine months ago.
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And it may not be enough.
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“The national economy as a whole is facing a huge loss of wealth.”
The money set aside stands at up to 440 billion euros ($465 billion), according to the calculations, which provide the first combined tally of all of Germany’s drives aimed at avoiding running out of power and securing new sources of energy.
That equates to about 1.5 billion euros a day since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Or around 12% of national economic output. Or about 5,400 euros for each person in Germany.
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Germany wants renewables to account for at least 80% of electricity production by 2030, up from 42% in 2021. At recent rates of expansion, though, that remains a remote goal.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germanys-half-a-trillion-dollar-energy-bazooka-may-not-be-enough-2022-12-15/
I can’t find a link to the Prognos study which claims $960 billion by 2050, please post the link in comments if you find it.
Even if you accept the premises of the claim of $960 loss by 2050, this is still proof that climate adaption is far cheaper than emissions reduction. The annual cost of the Energiewende failure, the cost of emergency subsidies alone, far outweighs the annual cost of running a few more air conditioners. Even a green should be able to do this math – $960 billion loss due to climate change by 2050 is a lot more manageable than €1.5 billion per day of additional government debt, because of failed green attempts to change the weather.
If Germany had maintained their coal plants, or built more nuclear, they wouldn’t be stuck with a green energy system which doesn’t work, a failed energy policy which has forced the German government to haemorrhage cash to keep the lights on.
Simple economics dictates that Germany should ditch their failed green ideas, and accept the $960 billion loss by 2050, if it actually occurs.
Something fishy with that €900 billion. That’s only €30 billion a year. Chump change. Near as I can tell from a quick google, they spent €700 billion in 2022.
Sure hope that Germany doesn’t remember all the gas and oil reserves in Ukraine and Romania; we’ve seen what they’re like…
Ignoring the blame game, German tanks and German ammunition are once again killing Russians. I’m sure Russian’s are not interested in “the details”; they’ve seen this before, and are “upset” with their neighbor, to say the least.
Agreed. Once agan, for the third or fourth time in a Century and a half. Once again over proprietorship of Ukrainian resources. Once again, a contest between (often literally) cousins and erstwhile trading partners.
The German weapons wouldn’t be killing Russians if Russians were not attacking Ukraine. Until this invasion, German had become a pacifist pussy cat.
German tanks are NOT killing Russians as so far all there have been are promises to send a handful of generally obsolescent Leopards to Ukraine. Months of work is needed to make them serviceable not to mention overcome compatibility problems due to the various different specifications not to mention Spain built their own version. And there is the transport problem to deal with since western tanks are heavier that Soviet era ones so need bigger tank transporters than they have in Ukraine.
Here is the list of 2022 and planned 2023 German aid to Ukraine (so far):
https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992
Lots of support, and this year’s plans are not obsolete tanks. They plan to send some of their latest main battle tanks (Leopard 2A6).
Whether tanks or wool socks, German supplies are helping to kill Russians. That is not a value judgment or political opinion, whatever your views about the conflict. It is a fact.
Good. Perhaps the Russians need killing.
Or is Germany so corrupted by Russia that it would like to be ruled by Russia instead of the EU?
At least the EU doesn’t have tanks. Yet.
Wow!! A whole 18 tanks. That will give the Russians some fun for a while. I wonder how much ammunition they have for them.
“so far all there have been are promises”
Then stop there.
Well its that or have German Euros rushing into Russia to pay for weapons to kill murder torture rape and poltically re-educate Ukrainians.
But I guess Germany is used to that.
Germany had an exceptionally mild winter. It could have been much worse. Incredible that solar is Germany’s new darling. The solar capacity for the three months of winter has to be around 3%.
Solar power in Germany – Dismal Capacity Factors (10% to 13%) | Energy Central
Germany adds 780 MW of solar, 86 MW of onshore wind in Jan (renewablesnow.com)
Solar
the country’s cumulative solar capacity in operation to 68.17 GW. With nearly 594 MW, rooftop installations accounted for more than 76% of the total fresh capacity.
newly installed onshore wind capacity dropped sharply to 85.8 MW in January.
Winter isn’t considered over until the spring equinox, still 2 weeks off. Seasonal lag sometimes puts cold weather, ice, and snow off until mid April. UK is getting a particularly cold storm as I write this. I nearly froze my tail off in Belgium and England in about ’88 during a cold weather event that shut down much of Western Europe.
Germany has gotten through so far by burning coal and buying up high-priced natural gas, the latter ostensibly from sources other than Russia. If all goes well (meaning the current and subsequent cold weather bypass Germany) the country may end winter with a short-termsurplus of high-priced fuel.
Capacity and actual GWh generation are not the same thing. European grid management authorities report wind and solar capacities (e.g. https://data.open-power-system-data.org/ see hourly data time series) that far exceed the electricity actually delivered to the grid, with German historical (2015-2020) annual generation against load being less than 8.5% for solar and never above 21% for wind.
In general, capacity factor calculations are disputed, and not reflective of electrical generation against demand. Solar capacity in Germany in 2020 reached 50 GW, but delivered median 4.6 GW/h during summer daylight hours, and running around 7% of electrical demand. Shortfalls in wind/solar production against load are compensated by burning coal or gas, or by trading electrical generation across national borders.
Floods happen with or without climate change.
…but only where corrupt officials give permits to corrupting developers to pave over wetlands and catchment areas, especially on sloped land…
Or ignorant officials keep lakes behind dams overfull even when the generally inept weather forecasts show a massive long rain event coming.
Or as in California, the woke liberals do not build new flood control dams for 40 years.
Add your own OR here.
😆 that’s not going to make any difference.
“…could be reduced completely…”
Admittedly, I did not catch that little intellectual gem!
So reduced completely would mean made to smallest amount… possibly zero but not necessarily?
Heavy snowfall tomorrow in California above 1,500m. I advise you not to go on the road.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2023/03/10/0000Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=precip_3hr/orthographic=-122.48,40.09,2250
Thanks, less others on the road makes it a lot nicer for me.
The report consists of two parts. The key part is a document from 2021 about the impact of climate change on Germany. It’s in German, Google translate can handle it: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/479/publikationen/kwra2021_teilbericht_zusammenfassung_bf_211027_0.pdf . They looked ONLY at RCP8.5! It’s a shame.
I uploaded an English version: https://www.file-upload.net/download-15108948/kwra2021_teilbericht_zusammenfassung_bf_211027_02.pdf.html
“ RCP8.5” sigh
“The National economy as a whole is facing a huge loss of wealth.”, followed by Eric noting that “Even a green should be able to do this math.”. The problem is that WOKE Green Loonies don’t do math anymore because “Math is Racist!”, according to the US National Teachers Union, a view adopted by California and Washington schools. This isn’t going to end well, especially for the countries all-in for Net Zero.
I had to google “math is racist” and found:
Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematics-confronts-its-white-patriarchal-past/
After half a century, I finally gave up on Unscientific UnAmerican- I could handle moderate wokeness but this magazine has gone full woke lunacy.
Fact checking is the mark of introspection, which is itself the mark of intelligence. Congratulations, Joseph, you can pass GO and collect the $200.
As a male person of no color, I can sat “we” are not winning math. Further or more specific words would risk earning WUWT hashtags it does not (AFIK) carry yet.
Marx doesnt care. He knows he is shafting you, thats his intent.
Forget about the argument, forget about the sums. The only figure Marxists need to understand is 5.56 mm, straight between the eyes
“Climate change could cost Germany up to 900 billion euros ($960bn) in cumulative economic damage by mid-century”
The economic damage will be caused by the goals of net zero- not climate change.
German industry is doing all it can to help reduce energy demand by either going bankrupt or investing in new factories in China – or the US where the Dementia Joe regime is chucking taxpayer cash around like confetti – and closing down those in Germany.
So much deficit spending… should I really think of them as tax dollars?
or
Is inflation a tax?
Inflation is meant to “inflate away” the US national debt. 30 trillion in debt is relatively 10 trillion when a dollar is worth 1/3 of what it was when the 30 trillion debt was accumulated.
It also makes the debt a smaller percentage of the national GDP. That is, of course, unless the Democrat/Brandon policies don’t completely crush GDP growth, something I am not betting against.
900 Billion cumulative sounds like a big number, however, it amounts to only 0.7% of German GDP, and this is likely a worst case estimate. Taking early or immediate actions to “mitigate” this non-problem crams this mitigation spending into short term budgets, further exacerbating the “mitigation” costs. All of this will have ZERO effect on global temperatures and, using the wrong technologies (intermittent and parasitic wind and solar) will destroy energy reliability, skyrocket costs of everything, and not even reduce emissions.
Shady science is shady science! If that claim is based on RCP8.5 simulations these conclusions are wrong, additionally there is the attribution problem (R. McKitrick has shown) which disqualifies any computer model based climate claim.
“If Germany had maintained their coal plants, or built more nuclear, they wouldn’t be stuck with a green energy system which doesn’t work, a failed energy policy which has forced the German government to haemorrhage cash to keep the lights on.”
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Feasibility studies folks, feasibility studies. I am beginning to wonder if politicians on both sides of the Atlantic even know what the hell they are.
One would think that a massive project like transitioning your entire energy system would at least trigger some sort of evaluation before leaping into it. But I guess politics precludes that.
Of course it does. The whole Climate change thing was worked out by Al Gore years ago as a way to sell GAS.
Demonise coal.
Demonise local fracking.
Separately demonise nuclear.
Throw massive sums at a technology that doesn’t work.
Pretend its not all about maximising profits out of dwindling fossil resources, especially in Russia and the Arab states, that hate the West.
Our politicians have rammed reneweables up our back passages and charged us for it. And told us we ought to be grateful.
Nowhere is there any reason to actually make any of it work.
And of COURSE EXXON knew. That climate change was faux science. But that Renewable energy was a whole new way to leverage their assets.
Why fight the narrative? It wasnt going to lead to LESS fossil fuel usage. or Lower fuel prices.
Please consider Merkel and the previous German head honcho, Gerhard Schroder, who ended on the Gazprom board, had it all in on having Russia controlling German energy supplies. Merkel got out right before the $hit hit the fan. She, and all the politicians who supported and still support GREEN crap should be tried for treason.
https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-former-chancellor-gerhard-schr%C3%B6der-to-join-gazprom-board/a-60664273
“Climate change and extreme weather have already cost Germany at least 145 billion euros ($155bn) from 2000 to 2021, 80 billion euros ($85bn) of which were in the past five years alone, including the 2021 floods in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the economy ministry said.”. [my bold]
#1. Note how they say ‘climate change and extreme weather’, but attribute the entire cost to just climate change.
#2. Extreme weather is, of course, something that happens naturally from time to time. The largest flood in Germany’s recorded history was over 600 years ago, in 1342.
The reality is that none of the predicted cost is from climate change. It is all just from the weather that Germany’s climate dishes out to them from time to time.
Cost Germany $960 Billion by 2050
Does that account for inflation ? .. I mean, by 2050, $960 Billion may look like “chump change”
So let me understand this, if we don’t address climate change we will have drought, flooding, storms, cold and heat. If we do address climate change we will have none of that. Give me a break!
I am guessing a huge part of the cost must by a claim that at least a part of the recent draughts and floods had a anthropogenic cause, but there is no scientific base for that.