Carbon dioxide reduction may be cheaper than you think
Perhaps the most frequently cited canard used as an argument against reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the allegation that it would be prohibitively expensive; some extreme analyses have placed the estimate as high as $20 trillion. A new study shows that the actual costs could be as low as a few billion, and may generate even greater economic savings:
But the McKinsey report argues that with a long-term model, costs are actually much lower. Supported by both energy companes [sic] and environmental groups, including Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Royal Dutch Shell, and Pacific Gas and Electric, the study finds that the United States could reduce its projected greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by three to four-and-a-half gigatons using technology that is largely already in place. "Eighty percent of the reductions come from technology that exists today at the commercial scale," according to McKinsey director Jack Stephenson.
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The report predicts that mitigation efforts will cost less than $50 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions, or an amount in the tens of billions of dollars overall.
It's an interesting sign of the times that two of the sponsors of the study are Royal Dutch Shell and PG&E.
This Business Week article deflates the logic behind the oft-quoted $20 trillion figure:
But the $20 trillion hit to the economy isn't immediate. Instead, that's the calculated cost in the year 2100, [Stanford University climatologist Stephen] Schneider says, not now. What does that really mean? Schneider ran the numbers, assuming the economy grows at about 2% per year. The seemingly huge $20 trillion price tag works out to "a one-year delay in being 500% richer," he says. In other words, paying the price to reduce climate change would mean Americans would have to wait until 2101 to be as rich as they otherwise would have been in 2100. To Schneider, that's a minuscule price to pay for saving the planet from the dangers of global warming. "Are you out of your mind? Who wouldn't take that?" he says.
Business Week, Royal Dutch Shell, and PG&E can hardly be considered bastions of tree-hugging liberalism. Time for action is drawing to a close, and even some of the most egregious contributors to the problem are beginning to realize how little time we have to act.