A cost of one tenth of a penny on the dollar — not counting co-benefits

Here is an overview of the major cost analyses of global climate action.

In its definitive 2007 synthesis report of the scientific literature, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded:

In 2050, global average macro-economic costs for mitigation towards stabilisation between 710 and 445ppm CO2-eq are between a 1% gain and 5.5% decrease of global GDP. This corresponds to slowing average annual global GDP growth by less than 0.12 percentage points.

So global GDP drops by under 0.12% per year — about one tenth of a penny on the dollar — even in the 445 ppm CO2-eq case (through 2050, see Table SPM.7). And this is for stabilization at 445 ppm CO2-eq, which is stabilization at 350 ppm CO2 (see Table SPM.6).

And that has a very good chance of averting the incalculable cost of catastrophic global warming impacts to the next 50 generations, which means the cost of action is far, far less than the cost of inaction.

The IPCC’s conclusion — and every single word in the report — was signed off on by 130 nations including China and the Bush Administration. Nor is this an especially controversial conclusion, at least among the few groups that have done comprehensive global economic and energy modeling:

• McKinsey 2008 Research in Review: Stabilizing at 450 ppm has a net cost near zero. [See cost curve for global greenhouse gas reduction measures -- click to enlarge.]
• Must read IEA report, Part 1: Act now with clean energy or face 6°C warming. Cost is NOT high — media blows the story

How can the world’s leading governments and scientific experts and McKinsey and the traditionally conservative International Energy Agency agree that we can avoid catastrophe for such a small cost?

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Conservative economist Dennis Avery, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and one of Marc Morano’s climate denial jokers, claimed today on a right-wing website that the “atmospheric CO2 levels at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory have declined since 2004″:

How can this be when humans keep emitting more greenhouse gases? Could declining atmospheric CO2 levels mean that the whole Greenhouse Warming theory is collapsing?

In fact, carbon dioxide levels measured since 1958 at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory have continued their inexorable rise, going from an average of 376 to 385 parts per million from 2004 to 2009:

Avery’s claim was based on a post on Morano climate denial joker Anthony Watts‘ blog, which implied that carbon dioxide growth rates have been going down. As Joe Romm noted at Climate Progress, “Dennis Avery doesn’t know the difference between growth and growth rate.”

In a telephone interview with the Wonk Room, Avery admitted his error:

I stand corrected . . . I apparently misstated the case.

Furthermore, the post Avery misinterpreted was nonsensical as well. Craig Loehle, principal scientist with the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, the forest products industry’s “research institute,” drew an “eyeball trend line for the peaks” of a chart of monthly carbon dioxide growth rates by Morano joker Alan Siddons. Despite Loehle’s ability to draw lines on charts, carbon dioxide is piling up in the atmosphere faster than ever:

To reiterate, carbon dioxide levels are continuing to increase. And the increase is getting faster. In the 1960s, carbon dioxide levels were going up an average rate of less than one part per million each year. Since 2000, carbon dioxide levels have been rising at an average annual rate of two parts per million. Avery and Loehle weren’t just wrong — they’re dead wrong.

The Wonk Room appreciates Avery’s willingness to admit one mistake. But we doubt this marks the beginning of a trend.

Written by Alexandra Kougentakis, a Center for American Progress Action Fund Fellows Assistant, and Brad Johnson.

At the G20 Summit in London on April 2, the 20 largest economies in the world, from the United States and the European Union to Russia and China, will discuss a response to the global financial crisis. Using a study first presented at the Center for American Progress, Germany will argue that a coordinated effort by the G20 to fight climate change will be essential to fighting the global recession. “Towards a Global Green Recovery: Recommendations for Immediate G20 Action,” by Ottmar Edenhofer of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PICIR) and Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics (LSE), notes that the G20 has the power to “trigger a global green recovery”:

As G20 countries account for roughly three quarters of global gross national product, energy consumption and carbon emissions, their combined efforts constitute a critical mass to trigger a global green recovery.

As the nation with the largest economy in the G20 and with one of the top greenhouse gas emission levels, the United States has a particular responsibility to act. The recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act devotes one of every ten dollars to making the kinds of green investments recommended by the Center for American Progress’s Green Recovery report and this new Potsdam-LSE report, according to an advance copy acquired by the Wonk Room.

The authors note that “the costs of action are likely to be much less than the costs of inaction.” Stern, who concluded in 2006 that a failure to address climate change could lead to “a 20% reduction in consumption per head, now and into the future,” has warned that more recent findings show his report actually underestimated the threats of climate change.

This new report accordingly states that “the risks from any given global temperature increase are greater than previously thought.” Even as “emissions are increasing at a faster pace,” “the planet’s capacity to sequester carbon in natural sinks is decreasing.” Therefore, “seven strategic areas for G20 action” are identified to build a global green recovery that will address short term economic decline while emphasizing a long-term strategy of sustainable growth:

1. Implement across-the-board energy efficiency improvements
2. Convert to low carbon economic infrastructure through physical upgrades
3. Support clean-technology markets in renewable energy and energy efficiency
4. Initiate flagship projects to improve technological knowledge and increase innovation
5. Enhance international research and development (R&D) efforts, including international collaborative projects
6. Incentivize investment in low-carbon growth by setting a global price of carbon
7. Coordinate financial and climate change mitigation efforts

Specific recommendations include:

– “Ensure that new infrastructure investments are ‘climate-proof,’ i.e. that they take into account the impacts of unavoidable climate change”

– “Review and amend national procurement guidelines with the aim of going ‘carbon-neutral‘”

– “The development of a G20 Strategic Energy Technology Plan . . . which could serve to streamline R&D efforts globally”

– “Appoint ‘Energy and Climate Sherpas‘ to coordinate follow-up meetings and ensure that momentum in developing policies is maintained”

Edenhofer and Stern recommend “linking regional schemes” to limit global warming emissions in the manner of the International Climate Action Partnership, a 2007 coalition of 15 countries and regions that have already implemented or are actively pursuing the implementation of carbon markets through mandatory cap and trade systems. Interlinked regional carbon markets can “pave the way for the negotiations on a global climate agreement, which will take place in Copenhagen next December.”

The world’s fossil-fueled economy is now sagging dangerously even as its continuation will make climate change unmanageable and catastrophic. By making strong investments in climate-friendly sectors, “Towards a Global Green Recovery” declares that “a global green recovery can deliver immediate and long-term economic benefits, cut the risk of dangerous climate change, reduce energy insecurity and competition for natural resources, and prepare the ground for a successful post-Kyoto agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009.”

The American Daily has just published this laughably wrong piece of disinformation by long-term global warming denier Dennis Avery, “Now CO2 is Declining as well as Temperatures.” Before AD and Avery take it down, let’s look at what passes for analysis among the deniers. The piece opens:

The atmospheric CO2 levels at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory have declined since 2004. How can this be when humans keep emitting more greenhouse gases? Could declining atmospheric CO2 levels mean that the whole Greenhouse Warming theory is collapsing?

Now let’s look at the Mauna Loa data, something Avery didn’t bother to do (from the NOAA website here):

Doh!

Avery is an environmental economist, and a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. I guess for conservative economists, “declined” means “steadily increased.” I guess that’s why, after eight years of being run by conservative economics, the economy is in such bad shape. [Insert your conservative economist joke here in the comments.] But I digress.

What’s especially laughable about this piece of “analysis” is that not only didn’t Avery check the Mauna Loa data, which would take maybe 10 seconds to find with Google — he apparently didn’t bother reading his original source or look at the title of his own footnote, which is “Mauna Loa Rate of Change.”

Avery’s inanity is actually based on some torturous and cherry-picked analysis from the winner of the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Anti-Science Blog, “Watts Up With That” [see "Diagnosing a victim of anti-science syndrome (ASS)"].

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The House will be announcing its comprehensive energy and climate bill Tuesday. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, however, “has been working to produce a bipartisan, comprehensive energy bill since the beginning of this Congress,” as a new press release explains.

The Committee, chaired by Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), will be marking up their bill Tuesday. They have just released an outline of key details, which I reprint below. Key features include authorizing the doubling of R&D, a major initiative to create a domestic battery industry for electric vehicles, and a major push to develop and deploy energy-efficient and low-carbon technologies for industry (which I will blog on a later).

Notably missing is a renewable electricity standard and an energy efficiency standard:

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Averting catastrophic global warming requires completely overturning the status quo, changing every aspect of how we use energy — and doing so in under four decades (see “The full global warming solution“). Failure to do so means humanity’s self-destruction, Hell and High Water.

Media coverage of the problem and the solution has been dreadful (see “The media’s decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress” and here). But why?

In his new cover story on Paul Krugman, Newsweek‘s Evan Thomas unintentionally provides the answer — the shocking, unstated truth about the media elite: They have “a vested interest in keeping things pretty much the way they are.”

Assuming we don’t spend the mere 0.11% of GDP per year needed to avert catastrophe, future generations who are puzzled about our fatal myopia need look no further for explanation than Thomas’s full remarks. He begins with the amazing admission, “If you are of the establishment persuasion (and I am),” and continues with words that should be emblazoned across journalism schools around the country and read out loud at every Ivy league college graduation:

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You will not hear anyone on my team cast doubt upon or downplay the threat of global climate change. The science is clear, and the threat is real. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction–or inadequate actions–are unacceptable.

But along with this challenge comes a great opportunity. By transforming to a low-carbon economy, we can stimulate global economic growth and put ourselves on a path of sustainable development for the 21^st century. I would go so far as to say that those who hang back and cling to a high-carbon path will be economic losers in the end because with the scientific facts of global warming getting worse and worse, high-carbon products and production methods will not be viable for long.

So chief negotiator Todd Stern told delegates to the 190-nation climate talks kicking off today in Bonn, Germany. In a Q&A, he said, “The United States is going to be powerfully and fervently engaged in this process.”

You can read a U.S. news story, “U.S. Climate Envoy Vows Support: Commitment to Global Talks Affirmed Even as Caveat Is Issued,” here; a German one, “Bonn Climate Talks Give Obama’s Green Team First Chance to Impress,” here; and Stern’s full transcript here. Stern acknowledged the need for U.S. action:

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Four key members of the House Energy and Commerce committee sent a letter to President Obama Friday (full text below) embracing the urgent need for climate action:

We represent different regions of the country and approach energy issues from different perspectives, but we are united in the view that now is the time for Congress to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation….

As scientists learn about the dangers of “tipping points” in the global ecosystem and their potentially disastrous consequences, the need for decisive efforts grows increasingly urgent.

Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey (D-MA) — who will release a draft energy and climate bill Tuesday — were joined by the two people they dethroned (see here and here) in this call for action.

Unfortunately, they seem to embrace the relatively wimpy US Climate Action Partnership proposal (see “NRDC and EDF endorse the weak, coal-friendly, rip-offset-heavy USCAP climate plan“):

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[With global climate negotiators meeting in Bonn, this week will have more of an international flavor. Here's another guest post from Charlie McElwee, an international energy & environmental lawyer and Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Law who writes the blog China Environmental Law.]

A number of well-respected US think tanks and NGO’s have recently issued reports and roadmaps that urge greater cooperation between the US and China on global warming issues and less finger pointing. For the most part, the proposals make very positive contributions and should aid the fight to reduce the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Many other NGO’s have been working on the ground in China for years and are also making important contributions to efforts to trim China’s carbon emissions. These efforts deserve our support (and thanks), and should continue.

Here’s the problem. We are fast approaching the point (Copenhagen, December 2009) where the rubber will (must!) hit the road. We are operating under an international framework that supports a “common, but differentiated” approach to global climate change negotiations. The “differentiated” component means that less is expected of “developing” countries, like China, than developed ones. The crucial question is how “differentiated” should China’s obligations be? Is China more like the US or more like Haiti? China’s historical as well as current and future carbon emission projections need to be considered in answering this question and tailoring its contributions to carbon reduction efforts.

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