Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6: Tax-inclusive ex-generator electricity costs
Source: Alan Moran
Conclusion
Just as economic assessments place a relatively low cost of quantifiable damage from
climate change, most studies also place a low cost on emission reduction measures.
Confidence in such outcomes is clearly not shared by the developing countries which
rejected as draconian the measures proposed at Copenhagen in 2009. Nor is the continued
resistance of developed countries (with the possible exception of the EU) to take actions
involving carbon taxes an indication that there is widespread belief in the low costs
promised.
The bottom line is that if global warming is taking place, even the IPCC is forced
to acknowledge that it will not be very harmful. According to their own cited studies,
the costs are less than a year's annual growth in global GDP. Attempts to suppress
emissions of greenhouse gases, even if politically feasible in a multilateral world of
nations with different interests, would, on IPCC estimates, cost more than any damage the
emissions may be causing. And the costs of such radical action would appear to be grossly
understated by the IPCC.
Moreover, the political feasibility of near unanimity of action—without which the
abatement assumptions unravel—were shown to be impossible at Copenhagen in 2009
where the increasingly powerful SinoIndian bloc refused to be persuaded by the threats
and blandishments of the EU and its allies. Stand-outs of any significant producer against
