Sol and I had a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal today, responding to an earlier editorial by Bjorn Lomborg. Below is what we wrote. The best part is that I am "Prof. Marshall Burke" and Sol is "Solomon Hsiang, PhD" and we are both at Berkeley. Apparently bylines are not the purview of the WSJ fact-checker (although Sol does have a PhD and is at Berkeley).
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Bjorn Lomborg's "Gambling the World Economy on Climate" (op-ed, Nov. 17) argues that emissions reductions are bad investments because of cost. But he never considers the value of the asset we are buying. Smart policy should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of possible actions and pursue those that yield the strongest return for society. Mr. Lomborg became famous advocating for this approach, but now he seems to forget his own lesson.
Our research shows that the climate is a valuable asset and paying billions to prevent it depreciating is a bargain. Our recent study published in Nature shows rising temperatures could cost 23% of global GDP by 2100 -- and that there is a 50-50 chance it could be worse. Mr. Lomborg rightly advocates for lifting up the world's poor, but we calculate that failing to address climate change will cost the poorest 40% of countries three-quarters of their income. By 2030 alone, we show that climate change could reduce annual global GDP by $5 trillion.
These are only the effects of temperature on productivity. Other impacts will add to the price tag. For example, we estimate avoiding intensification of tropical cyclones from climate change is worth about $10 trillion. And warming could increase conflict roughly 30% in 2050; what is that worth?
Mr. Lomborg says that $730 billion a year in 2030 is too much to pay to avoid many trillions in losses. This math is easy.
Prof. Marshall Burke
Solomon Hsiang, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, Calif.
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