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My understanding is that the IPCC estimates put the costs of climate change at ~2% of world GDP, and more aggressive estimates still have it under 10%. Is ther

by kauffj 8y ago

My understanding is that the IPCC estimates put the costs of climate change at ~2% of world GDP, and more aggressive estimates still have it under 10%. Is there a reason that cost would eliminate all of the gains cited in this article? Or are you basing the expected impacts off of another source?

coldtea 8y ago
>My understanding is that the IPCC estimates put the costs of climate change at ~2% of world GDP, and more aggressive estimates still have it under 10%. Kind of like the initial Titanic captain's estimates after the impact with the iceberg? The IPCC is a bureaucracy, it's job is to balance climate change control demands with requirements from businesses and governments to "not do much" because doing what's appropriate is bad for business and goes against the hysterics for "continuous growth" on which modern policy and economy is based on...
el_benhameen 8y ago
I’m not so concerned with the fiscal costs, and I think it’s short-sighted to think of the problem as one that can be solved or ameliorated by moving dollars and percentages around. The human and environmental costs, dollars aside, are staggering and painful to think about. E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-report-half-degree.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-... 37% of world population exposed to extreme heat waves and an additional 400 million people exposed to extreme drought at a 2 degree increase. And they’ll be angry, and they’ll either find somewhere else to go en masse or will suffer even more if they can’t leave.
- incangold 8y ago
  It is excruciating to think about. The consternation in Europe at a million or so Syrian refugees has been grotesque. Let alone hundreds of millions trying to get in, at the same time Southern Europe is having crop failures itself due to drought.
incangold 8y ago
That’s the IPCC estimate assuming we take urgent global action now. But instead of taking urgent global action, Brazil are about to open the rain forest to agri-business; the White House does not believe it is possible to stop climate change and is rolling back environmental protections and pulling out of the Paris Accord (which was nowhere near enough in the first place, and which none of the other signatories were achieving anyway); and Europe is distracted by Brexit and demagoguery. China are looking more serious, but are also pissing in the wind at current levels of effort. The IPCC report is in any case probably extremely optimistic on the impact of releasing the methane stored in permafrost. That could catapult temperatures up far too quickly for the ecosystem to adapt to, or even humanity to adapt to, even if we science very, very hard. So 1.5 degrees is what we get if we put in unprecedented effort that none of the important countries are showing any signs of doing, and also if we use probably-optimistic models. At least 4 degrees is more likely on current trajectory, and that is absolutely terrifying. North of that we get into the end of civilisation in anything like its current form. Also, arguably the most important gains of the last decades are from what used to be called the developing world dragging itself out of poverty. A disproportionate share of the economic and human cost of climate collapse will fall on those countries. Which doesn’t seem very fair because they haven’t had enough time to significantly contribute to or benefit from burning hydrocarbons. It is quite frustrating because doing what we need to do to stop all of this is relatively simple, if quite difficult, is basically inevitable anyway because renewables are increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels, and will make the world better in all sorts of other ways. Get your shit together humanity.
- incangold 8y ago
  I forgot to mention Australia, which is trying to expand coal because it is currently governed by absolutely awful people.
- kauffj 8y ago
  A quick attempt to find costs for 4 degrees C found ~7% of GDP, which would be inline with the figures from my original post. Source (first result for "gdp global warming 4 degree celsius"): https://phys.org/news/2018-08-trillion-lost-temperatures-degrees.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-trillion-lost-temperatures-deg... Do you have alternative numbers? 7% of GDP is a big hit, but it's not "end of civilization".
TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Your understanding is wrong. There is no attempt to estimate costs in the most recent IPCC reports. There is, however, a long catalog of horrors, including major biosphere die-offs on land and sea, massive forced migrations, loss of food security and corresponding loss of political and military stability, drought, sea level rise, and vastly increased probability of extreme weather damage. This is not about GPP, this is about the fact that terraforming a planet to make it less, not more, hospitable to its native ecology is quite astoundingly stupid.

by kauffj 8y ago

coldtea 8y ago

>My understanding is that the IPCC estimates put the costs of climate change at ~2% of world GDP, and more aggressive estimates still have it under 10%. Kind of like the initial Titanic captain's estimates after the impact with the iceberg? The IPCC is a bureaucracy, it's job is to balance climate change control demands with requirements from businesses and governments to "not do much" because doing what's appropriate is bad for business and goes against the hysterics for "continuous growth" on which modern policy and economy is based on...

el_benhameen 8y ago

I’m not so concerned with the fiscal costs, and I think it’s short-sighted to think of the problem as one that can be solved or ameliorated by moving dollars and percentages around. The human and environmental costs, dollars aside, are staggering and painful to think about. E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-report-half-degree.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-... 37% of world population exposed to extreme heat waves and an additional 400 million people exposed to extreme drought at a 2 degree increase. And they’ll be angry, and they’ll either find somewhere else to go en masse or will suffer even more if they can’t leave.

incangold 8y ago
It is excruciating to think about. The consternation in Europe at a million or so Syrian refugees has been grotesque. Let alone hundreds of millions trying to get in, at the same time Southern Europe is having crop failures itself due to drought.

incangold 8y ago

That’s the IPCC estimate assuming we take urgent global action now. But instead of taking urgent global action, Brazil are about to open the rain forest to agri-business; the White House does not believe it is possible to stop climate change and is rolling back environmental protections and pulling out of the Paris Accord (which was nowhere near enough in the first place, and which none of the other signatories were achieving anyway); and Europe is distracted by Brexit and demagoguery. China are looking more serious, but are also pissing in the wind at current levels of effort. The IPCC report is in any case probably extremely optimistic on the impact of releasing the methane stored in permafrost. That could catapult temperatures up far too quickly for the ecosystem to adapt to, or even humanity to adapt to, even if we science very, very hard. So 1.5 degrees is what we get if we put in unprecedented effort that none of the important countries are showing any signs of doing, and also if we use probably-optimistic models. At least 4 degrees is more likely on current trajectory, and that is absolutely terrifying. North of that we get into the end of civilisation in anything like its current form. Also, arguably the most important gains of the last decades are from what used to be called the developing world dragging itself out of poverty. A disproportionate share of the economic and human cost of climate collapse will fall on those countries. Which doesn’t seem very fair because they haven’t had enough time to significantly contribute to or benefit from burning hydrocarbons. It is quite frustrating because doing what we need to do to stop all of this is relatively simple, if quite difficult, is basically inevitable anyway because renewables are increasingly cheaper than fossil fuels, and will make the world better in all sorts of other ways. Get your shit together humanity.

incangold 8y ago
I forgot to mention Australia, which is trying to expand coal because it is currently governed by absolutely awful people.
kauffj 8y ago
A quick attempt to find costs for 4 degrees C found ~7% of GDP, which would be inline with the figures from my original post. Source (first result for "gdp global warming 4 degree celsius"): https://phys.org/news/2018-08-trillion-lost-temperatures-degrees.html https://phys.org/news/2018-08-trillion-lost-temperatures-deg... Do you have alternative numbers? 7% of GDP is a big hit, but it's not "end of civilization".

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

Your understanding is wrong. There is no attempt to estimate costs in the most recent IPCC reports. There is, however, a long catalog of horrors, including major biosphere die-offs on land and sea, massive forced migrations, loss of food security and corresponding loss of political and military stability, drought, sea level rise, and vastly increased probability of extreme weather damage. This is not about GPP, this is about the fact that terraforming a planet to make it less, not more, hospitable to its native ecology is quite astoundingly stupid.