[HN Gopher] The costs of global warming: 2% of global GDP
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       The costs of global warming: 2% of global GDP
        
       Author : Bostonian
       Score  : 9 points
       Date   : 2021-11-04 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (marginalrevolution.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (marginalrevolution.com)
        
       | missedthecue wrote:
       | Hmm. Covid lockdowns last year decreased global carbon emissions
       | by only 6.9%, but reduced GDP by about 3.5%, according to a quick
       | Google.
       | 
       | Given this, it seems that reducing carbon emissions by 100% would
       | cost a lot more than 2% of global GDP, making us better off just
       | living with global warming.
        
         | qeternity wrote:
         | You have the causality reversed.
         | 
         | In covid, the emissions dropped because economic activity
         | slowed (to the tune of 3.4% gdp). The economy didn't slow
         | because we reduced emissions.
        
           | missedthecue wrote:
           | The causality actually doesn't matter to much for my
           | argument.
           | 
           | Less travel, manufacturing, and general production in 2020
           | was what caused both gdp and ghg emissions to drop. They are
           | correlated. They both move in the same direction.
        
         | pharmakom wrote:
         | Not quite. COVID shut down sectors by infection risk not by
         | carbon intensiveness.
        
       | Comevius wrote:
       | By this measure agriculture is around 4% of the global GDP, so
       | losing it entirely should not be an issue.
       | 
       | The latest IPCC AR6 report paints a picture of a barely habitable
       | planet by 2100.
       | 
       | https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
       | 
       | https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/
       | 
       | The model they used in the linked paper gives a 20% chance per 1C
       | after 3C for large-scale discontinuity, otherwise economic and
       | non-economic damage is just a quadratic function of the
       | temperature.
       | 
       | Back in reality 3C would be Mad Max, dead oceans and unhabitable
       | land. Meat scalpers instead of graphics card scalpers. We would
       | still prevail if the atmosphere remains viable, but not as a
       | civilization. Certainly not at this level of resource
       | consumption.
        
         | tuatoru wrote:
         | The asymmetry is remarkable, too.
         | 
         | A few years ago the argument was "preventing global warming
         | would cost 0.1% of GDP, and that's totally unbearable."
         | 
         | Edit: "a few years ago", hah. That was the late 1990s or
         | thenabouts, when that's all it would have taken.
        
       | eniotna wrote:
       | It seems inevitable at this point that part of the solution is
       | investing in carbon capture technology in the future to offset
       | the damages we're causing today, the question is; are the damages
       | reversible? Asking individuals to consume less is useless at best
       | and hypocrite at worst.
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-04 23:02 UTC)