Apologies for Cross-Postings
Date: Fri,
23 May 2008 10:57:55 -0700
Subject: Study cites high cost of global warming, says action would be
cheaper
From: Steve Coyle <steve@no.address>
Study cites high
cost of global warming, says action would be cheaper
Renee Schoof - Sacramento Bee May 23, 2008
WASHINGTON - Doing nothing about global warming would cost America dearly
for the rest of this century because of stronger hurricanes, higher
energy and water costs, and rising seas that would swamp coastal
communities, says a new study by economists at Tufts University. The
study concludes that it would be cheaper to take aggressive action to cut
greenhouse gas emissions than it would be to suffer the consequences of a
changing world. "The longer we wait, the more painful and expensive
the consequences will be," the report states. The Senate in early
June will consider legislation to set a declining limit on emissions and
establish a market for pollution permits that would reward companies that
reduce pollution. The system is designed to reduce total U.S. emissions
by 66 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.
"Most of the debate we expect will be about how much it will cost to
implement the bill. This report provides the other side of the ledger -
how much it will cost if we don't act," said Dan Lashof, director of
the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group that commissioned the study. The Tufts study includes
a "bottom-up" analysis of the economic impacts in four
categories and says that by 2100, annual costs would be $422 billion in
hurricane damage; $360 billion in real estate losses, with the biggest
risk on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, particularly Florida; $141 billion
in increased energy costs; and $950 billion in water costs, especially in
the West. (The estimates are expressed in today's dollars.) That adds up
to an annual loss by 2100 of 1.8 percent of gross domestic product, or
GDP, the sum of the nation's output of goods and services.
The study's "business as usual" scenario, in which greenhouse
gas emissions continued at an increasing rate, was taken from the high
end of likely outcomes of inaction described by the Nobel Prize-winning
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year. The Tufts study also
incorporated some later scientific findings. The study projects that the
average temperature will increase by 13 degrees Fahrenheit in most of the
United States and 18 degrees in Alaska in the next 100 years,
intensifying heat waves, hurricanes and droughts. The report also
forecasts stronger hurricanes as a result of higher sea surface
temperatures; sea level rises of 23 inches by 2050 and 45 inches by 2100
that would inundate low-lying coastal areas; and higher air-conditioning
bills in the Southeast and Southwest that wouldn't be offset nationally
by lower heating bills in the North.
The authors of the Tufts study also used a revised version of the
model used by Nicholas Stern for his 2006 assessment of the cost of
inaction on a global scale. Using that model, the Tufts economists found
a U.S. loss of 3.6 percent of GDP by 2100. There have been more than six
studies of the cost of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as outlined
in the bill that will be debated in the Senate. All use different
assumptions and have different outcomes. None of these studies looked at
the costs of not acting, said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew
Center on Global Climate Change, which recently examined some of these
studies. The Pew Center economists found that many of the studies of the
costs of reducing emissions disregard cost-saving technologies and
programs. They also said that all models of the costs predict that if the
measures outlined in the bill were put into effect, the economy would
continue to grow. The costs would be felt as a reduction of future
growth.
Frank Ackerman, an economist at Tufts who was one of the main authors of
that study, said the impact of climate change would be worse than what
his numbers showed "because of the human lives and ecosystems that
will be lost and species that will be driven into extinction - all these
things transcend monetary values." Scientists already can observe
signs that the Earth is warming, including diminishing summer ice in the
Arctic Ocean, drier conditions in the West and more severe droughts and
storms, Lashof said. Most of the dangerous changes that are predicted can
be avoided, he added, "but our window of opportunity is closing very
rapidly."
Gary Liss
916-652-7850
Fax: 916-652-0485
www.garyliss.com
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