By Kenneth Richard on 14. December 2023
The benefits of not meeting Paris Accord emissions-reduction targets outweigh the costs associated even with worst-case-scenario global warming throughout the 21st century.
A new comprehensive analysis (Tol, 2023) weighs the cost-benefit of meeting Paris Accord emission policy targets to keep global warming in check, or under 2°C.
The analysis reveals that even in the best case scenarios (that assume emission reduction policies fully meet their avoided-warming targets), as well as in the worst case scenarios (that assume “constant vulnerability” to global-warming-induced climate disasters and widespread economic austerity), the tens of trillions of USD costs associated with moving away from fossil fuel consumption to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 (4.8% of GDP) still outweigh the net benefit losses (3.0% of GDP) in 2100.
“The central estimate of the costs of climate policy, unrealistically assuming least-cost implementation, is 3.8–5.6% of GDP in 2100. The central estimate of the benefits of climate policy, unrealistically assuming high no-policy emissions and constant vulnerability, is 2.8–3.2% of GDP.”
There is a nearly 10 times worse cost versus benefit if we only consider the net impact of best- and worst-case-scenario emissions reduction policies through 2050, which is the year it is assumed the world economy will have reached net-zero targets if all goes according to plan.
“In 2050, the year of net-zero, the best estimate of the benefits of the 1.5∘C target are about 0.5% of GDP while the costs are almost 5%.”
Of course, if the more realistic outcomes with regard to achieving emissions reduction targets eventuate, and if the global warming on tap for failing to achieve these targets is not as exaggeratedly hot as models assume (e.g., 5°C warming by 2100), the net costs of climate “action” exceed the benefits of avoided warming two-, three- and even four-fold.
Simply put, the “Paris targets do not pass the cost-benefit test.”
Yes, everyone who has studied the issue knows this, and that’s why the UK government in 2020 made it unnecessary for what they deem “strategic” projects, including “net zero,” to undergo any cost-benefit analysis.
Looks like the Cost/Benefit ratio is along the same trend as the Adaption/Mitigation issue. The most heavily weighted aspect of these types of analysis is that CAGW is an unproven theory, and the blind rush to destroy a countries economy for an unproven theory, especially in view of the two aspects (cost/benefit and adaption/mitigation), is so stupid that there is a (semi) hidden agenda in play. Watch out!
A question to ask is: Does reducing CO2 emissions have any benefits at all to human civilization as a whole?
And another: Who benefits from programs to reduce CO2 emissions?
Those who own the companies that get the contracts, outright or through stock ownership probably benefit the most. The workers also benefit.
“The workers also benefit.
No, they don’t. Overall “workers” are, like all regular people, in a loosing position when society wastes massive amounts of resources on useless, society starving, rent seeking scam.
A former head of the UNIPCC stated that the real goal of the environmental movement is the destruction of capitalism
TOL has been on this theme for years. That is why an Australian Uni some years ago cancelled his already agreed visiting scholar residency. Could not have truth being taught Down Under from a professor Up Over! They knew he believed in global warming, but only belatedly learned he thinks the answer is adaptation rather than mitigation.
That simply won’t do in mitigation crazed Australia, where blowing up all the old coal plants to guarantee they cannot be restarted when needed is quite the thing—until the grid crashes.
This article and others like it are just wild guesses that depend entirely on the assumptions. They could be off by 100 trillion for global Nut Zero.
Nut Zero is not based on is not science or engineering
Not one electric utilities in the US has a detailed plan to reach Nut Zero electricity. Such a plan is needed for engineering feasibility studies, especially for battery backup capacity that no utility can afford, a cost estimate and a critical path timing analysis
No engineering / construction project can succeed without a detailed plan. Some fail with a detailed plan.
Nut Zero is not designed to succeed.
It is designed to fail .
The failure of Nut Zero in a few years will be spun as a second climate emergency. for which the only cure is fascism (autocratic Rule by Government Leftist “Experts” who know nothing about everything).
No one with above average intelligence could possibly believe Nut Zero will succeed. The leftists in charge are not that dumb. They want to give orders and control people — Nit Zero is their best strategy since Covid.
I refuse to waste my time reading yet another wild guess of Nut Zero costs. I might as well pull a NUMBER out of a hat. We can’t afford Nut Zero and we don’t need Nut Zero
3%,5%, these are ridiculously puny numbers for costs to GDP which only encourages and supports culty science, green zealots and globalist governance planners of crimes against humanity that are orders of magnitude greater than those of the 20th century.
A bankable feasibility study for a mine and concentrator (say for lithium) is +/-15 to 20% accuracy in costing and we know how to do this. At the design/optimizing stage it could come down to +/-10%. For an associated lithium battery chemical plant, a contingency fund would be around 20%!
A Nobel Prize was awarded a couple of years ago giving such puny costs as Tol’s. Since this, in only a couple of years we have had rampant Green Policy-Caused global inflation, dozens of green energy manufacturing and installation companies go bankrupt and the biggest players, Orsted of Denmark and Siemens of Germany having to back out of giant signed contracts because they need 40% higher fees to break even. Investors had actually already fled the green energy sector in 2021!
Moreover, it seems we had peak renewables electrical generation in Europe in 2017 with 47 GW reaching end of life decommissioning (no one is saying how many GW more to 2023), and hapless governments are starting to panic, rushing around buying gas at high spot prices and refurbishing old coal plants. And guess what, we’ve only spent 3.5 trillion of the $100 trillion that’s been clearly underestimated. How many Angel’s can dance on the head of a pin is getting to be a more important problem to solve.
Bloomberg’s green energy research team estimates it will cost $US200 trillion and others are similar if not more.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain#xj4y7vzkg
…trillion to stop warming by 2050…
It may not even work. In 2020 when the pandemic hit the CO2 output dropped 6% and the percent of CO2 kept rising at the same rate.
Human CO2 reductions didn’t make a bit of a difference.
https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2020/global-energy-and-co2-emissions-in-2020
https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
This failure to drop should be understood by scientists of any kind, let alone consensus climate ‘scientists’. If you reduce emissions from FF burning, then the CO2 dissolving in the oceans is partially reversed by outgassing of CO2 to rebalance partial pressure in the air. Similarly, reduced emissions slows plant growth by taking up less CO2 for photosynthesis. A vanishingly small reduction occurs when a new equilibrium is established.
This is a beautiful example of the Le Châtelier Principle. It is the height of stupidity to entertain direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere as a mitigation strategy. You end up having it largely replaced by outgassing from the ocean and reduced photosynthesis. Gates and some of the other ‘geniuses’ pushing such silliness are giving themselves a two digit IQ test.
Unfortunately there are many people with above average intelligence who believe some equivalence of those stupid goals will indeed succeed. In my experience, they don’t understand any of the nuts and bolts, they just insists on the fairy tale idea that human ingenuity will overcome all barriers, that new discoveries will rewrite the past few hundred years of basic science to allow whatever is desired (by them) to materialize. It may indeed be stupid behavior but it is not because they are unable to understand details or think rationally, they just don’t want to. Leave that hard stuff to the “experts”.
In a June 2023 Pew Research poll, they found that 69 percent of Americans favored the steps to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Two-thirds of the Republicans under 30 supported finding alternate Energy sources while 42 percent of Republicans overall supported finding alternate energy sources.
Ninety percent of Democrats favored finding alternate energy sources.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/09/what-the-data-says-about-americans-views-of-climate-change/
Almost every single article you comment on has the same copy clip “research”.
Why, when you’ve had responses showing the “research” by Pew of all people, is BS?
All of those people may SAY that, but when it comes to actually walking the walk, they don’t. They drive gas cars, fly everywhere, and in short live as they wish. If you really really believe all that then you have to act as if you do, and there aren’t many of those who do.
And when asked if they would be willing to spend $15/week to achieve net zero almost all said no
There are no benefits of slowing the growth of atmospheric CO2 and the costs are only a wild guess because there are no detailed plans, just glorious vision statements and arbitrary empty promise completion dates.
Nut Zero is not needed and can not succeed with 7/8 of the world’s population living in nations that could not care less about CO2 emissions and 1/8 of people living in nations that will never meet their Nut Zero targets.
The cost of Nut Zero will be the loss of our personal freedom with the growth of fascism — which is already here and growing. In my view that makes the cost of Nut Zero infinite.
If you think Nut Zero is about the climate, then think again.
Yes and no.
1/ Nut Zero is not about climate
2/ Reducing atmospheric CO₂ is all about stopping all this Earth’s land masses becoming deserts
Because:
a/ The rising level of CO₂ is not coming from increasing ’emissions’ but decreasing absorptions by the biosphere
b/ Rising temperatures are not coming from ‘trapped heat’………
…..the exact opposite applies, rising atmospheric temp is manifestation of Earth losing heat energy
c/ Temperature is not Energy
d/ The Science is utter garbage and everybody knows that
The Grand Solar Minimum has started and the previous cycle was a weak one. Cold seems like a much bigger threat.
It is estimated by Bloomberg to cost $200 trillion. There is a lot of profit in there for investors.
Except the world is bankrupt so where is the money coming from
The money comes from central banks fabricating trillions out of thin air. Massive inflation is a stealth tax on everyone.
Being innumerate is a near requirement for a Green.
The Scottish Greens have insanity as their first requirement. Innumeracy is merely an additional bonus.
Scary how much is spent on this green stuff, and you know there is no net gain from any of it.
Good points being made here. The numbers simply don’t make the case for action.
But even doing the analysis of cost v benefit scenarios follows from the proponents’ use of the persuasion technique Scott Adams calls “thinking past the sale.” It is already being taken for granted that the claimed problem is worth spending time to address.
Better, in my opinion, to demonstrate the unsoundness of the claimed attribution of ANY of the reported warming to incremental non-condensing GHGs. There is NO WAY to reliably confirm that a better climate outcome can be obtained by decarbonizing the economy in pursuit of “net-zero” at huge expense.
Adapt and protect, while providing reliable supplies of electricity and fuel for production, transport, mobility, and shelter from the elements.
Push back and reject the “sale” (i.e. don’t accept that the AGW “sale” has already been made.)
Net Zero is all about monstrously bloated & spendthrift Governments & bureaucracies attempting to save themselves from their own self-inflicted extinction
i.e. The Parasite is now too large and too hungry, net zero is a desperate attempt to prod The Host into proving more more more
Alert Readers will be aware that that is The Exact Opposite of what said bureaucracies claim it is all about.
Chronic depressives, children and socialists all share this one characteristic – Extreme Mendacity
The Perfect Analogy is where ‘Terminator’ fell into the vat of molten steel.
Excess Government is = Terminator
I had to chuckle reading his Conclusion:
“The number of ex-post estimates of the costs and efficacy of climate policy is growing rapidly. These cannot replace ex-ante studies, but should inform model parameterizations and perhaps encourage model retirements too.”
and
“The environmental movement will have to come to terms with a catastrophe that was foretold but did not materialize. These topics are perhaps better left to politicians and social psychologists.”
Who said scientists can’t have a droll sense of humor?
The worst analyses assume global warming has no winners. For certain people in certain places “worst case” is a huge benefit
Here is the plan….Plan D for Disaster. The cure will be worse than the disease….but the disease does not really exist. The electric grid will be made far less reliable and electricity more expensive….while forcing EVs on the people to increase the demand on the grid…..this Plan D should work to perfection……other elements of the plan will hurt agriculture and manufacturing….make everything more difficult and expensive…..in the future when it becomes clear Plan D was for nothing…..most of the perps will be gone and those that remain will lie and deny any connection to Plan D.
There will be no “net benefit” from emmission reduction policy. On the contrary, there will nothing but be huge pain from it, resulting in a significant lowering of overall living standards. Buzz Lightyear’s cry of “To insanity and beyond!” seems appropos.
As always, they don’t care that net-zero garbage fails a cost-benefit analysis spectacularly. That’s actually a feature, not a bug – the whole point is to allot money to the friends and allies who are part of the biggest grift in the history of the world.