Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars

Those $ are mind numbing.

 

How do they justify those numbers?

 

we have to force people to save money you see

 

This makes no sense

 

Its all about who gets the money.

Cab companies protest against Uber. Auto dealerships lobby to keep Tesla from selling directly to consumers. Luddites protested in the 19th century because automated machines made textile workers useless. If farriers and makers of broughams didn't protest the automobile, it was only because they were too arrogant and blind to see what was coming.

Saving a ton of money on cheap, clean energy will make new fortunes for a bunch of new parties, and destroy an existing money machine for others such as companies that have been strip mining coal in West Virginia and Tennessee for more than a hundred years.

No matter how beneficial to everybody else, coal mining concerns aren't getting paid from solar and wind farms. They will get paid as long as demand for coal remains. They will do everything possible, therefore, to convince everybody that coal remains the best, cheapest option, no matter whether it is true or not.

Vested interests hate change, because the status quo is how they got rich. Changing conditions means they have to start over.

As long as vested interests have money to control the soap box, it actually does make sense, a bit, even though Commodore thought he was being witty.

 

I-banks produce research acknowledging anthropomorphic global warming, energy companies subsidize research questioning it.

 

I don't doubt the 2nd part. They aren't really ack AGW. They are simply working on two main paths and comparing their costs over a 25 year period. Too much to read and I don't understand how they come up with their # yet.

 

This report is basically a Jenga tower, with a lot of fancy statistical bricks but lacking a strong foundation of facts and any assumptions breaking down will destroy the structural integrity.

The weakest link is projected costs. Wet have yet to see any climate change related costs that can be proven to be related to acg rather than weather. The oceans aren't rising more than 2-3 mm (0.1 inches) a year. We cannot predict weather or any long term weather patterns, and have no idea if any changes would be beneficial or harmful.

It's getting warmer? Great, we get more farmland in Russia and Canada - two huge countries. It'll get wetter in some areas and drier in others? Why do you assume that hurts instead of helps?

Overall, the report predicts a net benefit of 2 trillion dollars. Sounds like a massive win, right? Oh, you mean 2 trillion on 200 trillion? Now it sounds like 1% or a rounding error. Regardless, that's well within the margin of error based on the major assumptions and long term time scale of this report.

I'd say to get within 95% certainty, you'd have to give those numbers with +/- 20 trillion. And these economists are listing them to a tenth of a trillion? Please. If you are a mathematician, statistician, scientist or thinker, you have to disregard this report.

It's a SWAG dressed up for the environmental Oscars.

 

Citigroup: that long-standing bastion of liberalism.

 

I'm not looking at the motives, I'm looking at the fact that they are guessing at every single number in the report. If it were science, it would be poor science with no predictive value. Calling it economics doesn't give it any extra credibility, if anything it lessens the credibility.

This report has no ability to predict the future, its only merit lies in its use as propaganda to people who don't understand how numbers and probability work. I do find it humorous that like most global warming predictions, by the time it it's proven correct or incorrect, the authors will probably be dead or forgotten.

 

Their estimate costs of a low-carbon energy have nothing to do with climate change. You are mixing up things.

They have an estimate cost of a low-carbon energy path vs a today-carbon energy path. It does not take into account anything related to climate change. Just the estimated costs of each path. There is a 2 Trillion differences between them.

They have an estimate on the damage to GDP from negative effects of various warming (1.5c vs 2.5c vs 4.5c) . This is a different cost estimate. This is in the range of 20 to 72 Trillion.

 

Yes, they are all estimates of damage from change from now to 45 years from now with zero solid evidence for any of the alleged costs. But don't mind the voice of reason, I'm old enough to know better than to argue with religion. I'm out.

 

Why is that "humorous"? History is full of scientists, artists, politicians, etch. who didn't see the end result. So people shouldn't aspire to greater things?

"I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. "

-MLK

 

I don't know why people would want to argue with these facts that the CEOs of many huge companies are driving. There are ways to save money and produce less environmental impact AT THE SAME TIME!

This is very calculable and demonstrable from proven energy efficiency programs being conducted right now by Fortune 500 companies who have the biggest energy spend.

This is what my software does, and it is rolled out to dozens of Fortune 500s, and I have access to the changes they are making and their impacts on actual energy spend and carbon.

This research is right in line with what we are seeing, and is from numbers that are being reported by the big companies.

 

you're right, it makes no sense that profitable behavior would require coercion

 

Why? Individuals and companies generally don't look at 50+ year time horizons.

And what's profitable/beneficial for a country may not necessarily be profitable for individual companies. Those companies will lobby against it while the companies that will benefit may not even exist yet.

 

Doesn't sound like you ever read it - the payoff isn't even dependent on forecasting the economic impact of global warming - negative or as you like to fantasize - positive. It's considering the net impact from a purely economics standpoint (not environmental).

As for climate models, they are turning out to be more and more accurate as time goes on, and increases we are seeing now are being accurately predicted.

The world will warm, it's because of man-made reasons, and the evidence is more than strong, it's at a point where the scientific community isn't even debating whether or not we are doomed for a warmer future because the consensus is that it's going to get hotter.