Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Encouraged by the reception of my previous post “Eight Ten-Thousandths Of A Degree Per Gigaton“, which ranged from warm acceptance through amused contempt to outright hostility, I’ve expanded my research to analyze the CO2 emissions of the late great State of California.
In my post linked above, I found that IF the IPCC is correct (which is a big “IF”), for each gigaton (Gt) of avoided CO2 emissions, there is an avoided global warming of 0.0008°C. Please read that post for the detailed calculations.
And utilizing that relationship, here are the past and projected future California CO2 emissions.
Figure 1. California historical and projected emissions, and the avoided warming we MIGHT get from the drop in emissions.
WOW! For all of our sacrifices here in California, for all the money we’ve spent and are projected to spend, we MIGHT cool the world twenty years from now by 0.006°C … be still, my beating heart …
Now, as to how much that has cost and will cost, the numbers are hard to come by. Here are some major costs:
• The California solar mandate is estimated to increase the cost of newly constructed single-family homes by approximately $8,400 each. There are ~ 60,000 new single-family homes built each year in California. That’s about half a billion dollars per year for the next 20 years until 2045, or $10 billion total.
• The “Renewable Mandates” and rooftop solar subsidies have made current California electricity about $0.15 per kWh more expensive than its neighbors. Average since 2004 is about $0.10 per kWh more expensive. California’s annual electricity consumption in 2023 was approximately 287,220,000,000 kWh. That’s a cost of $35 billion per year times 20 years (2025-2045) equals $700 billion, plus $29 billion times 20 years (2004-2024) gives a total of $1.3 TRILLION. And that’s with the totally unrealistic assumption of no increase in either consumption or electricity costs.
But hey, the Governor’s “green” pals are getting rich … however, I digress …
• Since the inception of California’s “Cap And Trade” program, it has generated ~ $5 billion in total revenue. The current cost of said climate indulgences is about $35 per ton. So if say half the upcoming emissions decreases will be due to the Cap and Trade system, that’s another $110 billion.
• The California ban on gas-powered appliances in new single-family homes goes into effect in 2030. It is estimated to increase the price of new homes by ~ $24,000. Sixty thousand new homes per year, times $24,000 per home, times fifteen years 2030-2045 gives a total cost of ~ $22 billion.
That’s a total of about $1.5 TRILLION dollars, and it doesn’t count the cost of other California CO2-related laws and regulations. The increase in electricity demand from electric houses and electric cars alone will be another huge cost. A trillion and a half hard-earned taxpayer dollars … and all of that to MAYBE reduce the temperature in 2045 by six-thousandths of one degree C.
Seriously. 0.006°C.
Meaningless. Unmeasurably small. Lost in the noise.
And please, don’t say that if only everyone did it, everything would be wonderful. At a cost of $1.5 terabucks for a reduction of 0.006°C, it would cost us OVER $250 TRILLION DOLLARS to perhaps maybe possibly reduce the 2045 temperature by one degree … madness.
Hopefully, this lunacy is subsiding, but I fear California will be the last to get the memo …
Best to all,
w.
PS—Most folks have no idea how huge a trillion dollars is.
Suppose we had a trillion dollars and we wasted a million dollars a day on climate starting today. In that case, we’d waste the last million around October 30th of the year 4762AD … surely we have better things on which to spend a million dollars a day for the next 27 centuries. For that amount, we could turn the world into paradise …
PPS—When you comment please quote the exact words you are referring to. Avoids many misunderstandings.
Great post, Willis, but you forgot to account for alll the extra CO2 produced by wild fires and EV spontaneous combustions due to Commifornia’s insane state policies! With those factored in it looks like the slope in Fig. 1 becomes positive! Between the homeless meth heads, and the eco-arsonists the state should easily find their way to a toasty, golden brown future!
An extra $24k for an all-electric home in California? I’m thinking of impact fees for new electrical infrastructure. 60k new homes a year with electrical services twice the capacity of the average home, because of residential quick chargers for your Cali-mandated electric cars, and it begins to make sense. In a state that already has difficulty keeping the lights on, $24k may not be enough.
Thanks for the data and calculations, Willis. I’ve asked a number of CA politicians and bureaucrats how much warming will be averted by CA’s “climate change” schemes. None have offered an answer. Now I can provide them with the info.
Harold the Organic Chemist Says:
CO2 Does Not Cause Warning Air!
Shown in the chart (See below) are plots of temperatures at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001. In 1922, the concentration of CO2 in air was
ca. 303 ppmv (0.595 g of CO2/cu. m.), and by 2002, it had increased to 371 ppmv
(0.729 of CO2/cu. m.), but there was no corresponding increase in air temperature at this remote arid desert. The reason there was no increase in the temperature of the air is quite simple: There is just too little CO2 in the air. This small amount of CO2 can heat up such a large amount of air by a very small amount if at all.
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 425 ppmv in June 2025. One cubic meter of this air contains 0.839 g of CO2 and has a mass of 1.29 kg at STP. The concentration of CO2 in dry air has increased by 15% from 2002.
The empirical temperature data falsify the claim by the IPCC that CO2 causes global warming and is the control knob for climate change.
The chart was obtained from the late John Daly’s website: “Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.John-Daly.com. From the home page, scroll down to the end and click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map”, click on “North America”, scroll down and click on “Pacific”. Finally, scroll down and click on “Death Valley”.
John Daly found many weather stations around the world that showed no warming up to 2002. You should check out charts for many of these weather stations, especially those in Australia. You should print out this comment and show it to politicians and bureaucrats. You need to inform them that is very little CO2 in the air and that the main greenhouse gas is H2O and 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with H2O.
My pleasure, Eric. Spread it far and wide.
w.
Willis, I’m afraid that what you term “lunacy”, is here to stay for quite a while, here in California. The average “Joe”, when presented with such logic and/or math, just goes blank. There’s been, at least, a generation of citizens that have been “dumbed down” and/or brainwashed by the schools and media. I’ve seen it in our schools. Maybe when the economic pain gets sufficiently bad, people will pay attention. Let’s hope.
Let’s admit it.
We are ALL much poorer due to the “Green New Deal”.
It IS green – $ for the ‘crony capitalist’ and his lobbyist.
On top, the “rising temperatures” are mainly due to UHI effects and the increase affects nightly temperatures, not the daily ones (due to concrete and asphalt storing heat during the day, and radiating heat at night). It gets less cold during the night and not warmer during the day.
The world isn’t getting hotter, but more temperate and milder, and CO2 doesn’t play any significant role at all.
California’s federal lands are hemorrhaging carbon dioxide. Wildfires are largely to blame
The ecosystems on the American Southwest’s federal lands are hemorrhaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than any other region in the U.S., according to a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey.
…
“In California, it’s primarily a story of fire,” said Benjamin Sleeter, a research geographer with the USGS who led the ecosystem analysis in the new study.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-28/californias-federal-lands-are-hemorrhaging-carbon
be still, my beating heart
I grew up with “be still, my racing heart.”
The vast majority of this calculation comes from the excess cost of electricity. This is a problem in that it’s hard to link this excess cost directly to any one regulation. OTOH there is no CO2 benefit that can be linked directly to this major cost. So this $1.3 Trillion, or some part of it is just wasted entirely.
CA is operating on the assumption that high costs are good because they reduce consumption and fight the evil CO2 monster, but in reality CA residents are just getting ripped off. Furthermore, most of this excess is not reducing CO2 production, it’s simply moving it elsewhere.