Better insulation, lighting, and agricultural practices in both the developed and the developing world could help the world reduce carbon emissions by 26 Gigatons per year by 2030, at a cost of less than $52/ton of carbon. This carbon reduction is predicted to hold global warming to 2 degrees Celsius on average.
The total bill isn't cheap, but it's manageable. If each carbon mitigation step were selected in order of least cost, the whole thing could be done for less than $665 billion (over 23 years). Even the more expensive version runs $1.46 trillion (about the same as the Iraq war, which has been spent in 4 years).
Numbers Review
The criticism I have with the WSJ post is their calculation of the portion of European GDP this will cost. They tally up the total in Euros ($1.1 trillion) and divide that over 14 (?) years (2030 - 2007 = 23 in my calculator). Then they note that this will amount to 0.7% of GDP, a not unsubstantial portion of the 2.8% growth last year.
First, doing the math over 23 years reduces the impact to about .035% of GDP.
Second, at least one study estimates the cost of climate change inaction at 20% of U.S. GDP. So, inaction costs a bit more than action.
Third, a lot of the carbon mitigation activity - buying new insulation, new lighting, etc - requires spending money. This money, when spent, increases GDP. So why are they saying this?
an anti-global-warming bill of the sort McKinsey is talking about would mean an appreciable drag on growth.It might, if all the money was spent by the government. But even then, the spending would be stimulating domestic production of energy efficient materials. And most of all, spending to mitigate climate change offsets spending to deal with it.
In other words, there's as good a chance that saving the world will be good for the economy as not.
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