Global Warming Policy

Cure Worse than the Disease

Warming of the world may have economic costs that exceed benefits, but cutting CO2 emissions will not necessarily improve matters. Warming alone may have net negative impacts. However, warming caused by human activity cannot be divorced from the benefits that human activity generates. Cutting CO2 emissions will have clear economic costs.

 

from: The Heritage Foundation, May 28, 2013
Research Report: Backgrounder #2802 on Energy and Environment
By David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D.

Cure Worse than Disease

Adopting carbon restrictions of the magnitude mandated by the Lieberman–Warner and Waxman–Markey cap-and-trade bills or the Boxer–Sanders carbon-tax bill would harm the U.S. and global economies. By 2100, the global economy would lose more than $100 trillion. Analysis suggests that countries with stronger economies can overcome the challenges posed by warming. Indeed, faster growth would insulate the economy from the negative impacts of global warming.

How would adopting a global-warming policy affect world income?

1).  Carbon-restricting policies of the magnitude set out by the various cap-and-trade bills and recent carbon-tax proposals would impose costs on the world economy that exceed benefits by more than $100 trillion by the end of this century.

2).  Extending the carbon policy to all major developed countries would only increase the overall negative impact on the world economy, leading to net losses of nearly $400 trillion by 2100.

3).  Carbon-restricting policies would harm future generations more than the current generation. The annual net impact in the final two decades of this century would be 200 times larger than in the first two decades of the policy, even after adjusting for inflation.

 

Read the full report here.

 

Filed under: Global Warming

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