Climate change heroes' sham case

[HT:HM]
ONE commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, for example, used this argument when he presented the European Union's proposal to tackle climate change earlier this year. The EU promised to cut its CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, at a cost the EC's own estimates put at about 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product, or roughly $100 billion - per year.

But Barroso's punchline was that "the cost is low compared to the high price of inaction". In fact, he forecast the price of doing nothing "could even approach 20 per cent of GDP". (Never mind that this cost estimate is probably wildly overestimated).

This sounds eminently sensible, until you realise that Barroso is comparing two entirely different issues.

The 0.5-per-cent-of-GDP expense will reduce emissions ever so slightly (if everyone in the EU actually fulfills their requirements for the rest of the century, global emissions will fall by about 4 per cent). This would reduce the temperature increase expected by the end of the century by just 0.05C. Thus, the EU's immensely ambitious program will not stop or even have a significant impact on global warming.

In other words, if Barroso fears costs of 20 per cent of GDP in the year 2100, the 0.5 per cent payment every year of this century will do virtually nothing to change that cost. We would still have to pay by the end of the century, only now we would also have made ourselves poorer in the 90 years preceding it...

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