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About UsThis Bailout Will Be Even Larger
- Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 13:44
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Photo courtesy hibino and licensed by Creative Commons.
Are you upset with the federal Wall Street bailout plan? Do you think too much money was given away? You haven’t seen anything yet. How about a slightly larger bailout each year until the year 2050? It’s expected that the total cost to fight global warming, including significant cuts in carbon dioxide output, could run into the trillions of dollars – $45 trillion to be exact – from now until the year 2050. That’s, on average, 1.1% of annual global GDP over the period.
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About the Author
iEntry has written 2022 stories on this site.
A social and fiscal conservative, I scour the news for information that disputes the current man-made global warming indoctrination that takes place around the world. I take a rather sarcastic approach to reporting on the nonsense being spewed by the talking heads in the media and the governments around the world.
Have you come across the Stern Review on the economics of climate change? He predicts that it would cost around 1% of world GDP for at least a century to fight climate change, you’re right. What he also says is that if we don’t fight climate change, it could knock 20% off GDP for the same period.
In other words, every $1 spent now on adaptation or renewables would pay back $5 in saved costs later.
Now, consider that the US under Bush spent around 4% of GDP on defense. All defense spending is speculative – you might face threats in the future, you might not. The spending is an insurance against possible threats. The same logic applies with climate change. It might not happen, but the costs of it if it does are so high that it is worth that insurance at 1% of GDP.
Jeremy. There has been 1000 billion dollar spent on the Iraq war (to establish freedom and democracy), and that is 200 billion dollars a year.
45000 billion dollar a year for the Western world is for US at least 200 billion dollars a year, and in total the cost is 5 times the Iraq war.
Also you say 1 percent, but that isn’t a correct number, and it Stern mention it he counts on stupid revenues from taking radical and costy actions. according to Stern the revenues from extremely radical actions on “the climate issue” is a 5 percent reward each year! That (internalized costs for AGW) is a number that no other people in economics agree with, and has therefor been heavily criticized by economists everywere.
What we have is 45000 billion dollars until 2050.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/06/07/iea-45-trillion-needed-to-cut-co2-emissions-50-by-2050/
This is more than 1 percent every year for all of the Western world. That is in total, accumulated over 42 years, almost a 40 percent lower GDP!
This much lower GDP we shall accept despite there is no proof that CO2 controls the climate. Actually that ideaq, from IPCC, is based in the premises that the temperature is reinforced by a 3-fold reinforcing positive feedback. But, believe it or not, no of volcanoes or systematic changes which have occured in the low level cloud cover has showed that reinfocing positive feedback. Instead they show a stabilizing negative feedback for the climate system.
Pinatubo:
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page25.htm
5 percent low level cloud cover change, resulting in 2 perent albedo change, which in energy change is as much as +105 ppm CO2 since industralization started:
http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/palle1266.pdf
Correction: It’s not 45000 billion dollars in a year.
It’s 45000 billion dollar _in 42 years_ for the Western world, which is more than 1 percent of the GDP.
No, it wouldn’t be a 5% ‘reward’ each year, it would a 5% saving. Climate change will devastate agriculture in drier areas, losing billions of dollars of revenue. It will create massive floods risks on coastal towns, while towns inland may see their water sources dry up. There will be mass migration from uninhabitable parts of the world, in Africa, Asia, but also regions like Texas or New Mexico.
The whole point of Stern’s report is that it would be cheaper in the long term to prevent this happening than to try to fix it all as it happens one disaster at a time in the future.