The Affordable Cost To Stop The Climate Crisis

The Surprisingly Low Price Tag on Preventing Climate Disaster

Yuval Noah Harari, January 18, 2022 (Time Magazine)

“As the climate crisis worsens, too many people are swinging from denial straight to despair…Despair is as dangerous as denial. And it is equally false. Humanity has enormous resources under its command…[No one knows the full cost to] prevent catastrophic climate change…[Achieving a net-zero carbon economy has been estimated to require just] 2% to 3% of annual global GDP…We can quibble endlessly about the numbers, tweaking the models this way and that…[But the] crucial news is that the price tag of preventing the apocalypse is in the low single digits of annual global GDP…

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…[And it is] about making investments in new technologies and infrastructure, such as advanced batteries to store solar energy and updated power grids to distribute it. These investments will create numerous new jobs and economic opportunities, and are likely to be economically profitable in the long run in part by reducing health care expenditures and saving millions of people from sickness caused by air pollution…

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Since global GDP is now about $85 trillion USD, 2% currently totals about $1.7 trillion…[That will not] derail the economy or abandon the achievements of modern civilization. We just need to get our priorities right…During the 2008–09 financial crisis, the U.S. government spent about 3.5% of GDP to save financial institutions…[In just the first nine months of 2020 COVID stimulus measures were] worth nearly 14% of global GDP…[Right now, 2.4% of global GDP goes to militaries, 2% of annual global GDP subsidizes the fossil-fuel industry, and tax evasion costs] around 10% of global GDP…The money is there…[Instead of defeatism, demand] 2% of annual global GDP.” click here for more

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