Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
much larger than the earlier costs. Taking all countries together, the net
benefi ts in the post-2050 period are $7.4 trillion as compared with the
pre-2050 net costs of $1.6 trillion.
Some important points emerge from this discussion. To begin with,
for the world as a whole, a cooperative agreement such as that underlying
the Copenhagen Accord would be highly benefi cial in the long run. All
countries will eventually benefi t. However, this is an investment with a
very long-term payoff. Most countries must wait at least half a century
to reap the fruits of their investment.
From a practical point of view, this raises a thorny problem in gen-
erational politics. People often resist making sacrifi ces for future gen-
erations. For example, should we reduce spending on health care for
the elderly to provide schooling for the young? The temporal trade-offs
are similar in slowing global warming. Asking present generations to
shoulder large abatement costs for future generations, particularly if
they're richer, is diffi cult to sell. The delayed payoffs reinforce the in-
centives of the nationalist dilemma, so the temptation is doubly high to
postpone taking the costly steps to reduce emissions.
PRISONERS OF PARTISANSHIP
A third set of obstacles involves the unavoidable reality that there
are losers as well as winners from an ambitious global warming policy. I
have already shown that most countries will experience net costs from
global warming policies over the next few decades. Some powerful
groups will also be economically disadvantaged, and these costs will be
largely concentrated in sectors that produce or use fossil fuels.
For example, suppose that the United States adopts emissions lim-
its like those contained in the Copenhagen Accord or proposed by the
Obama administration in 2009. According to estimates by the Depart-
ment of Energy, coal use would decline by half over the next decade.
There were 90,000 coal miners in 2011, so the reduced coal use might
reduce employment by around 40,000 workers. The loss of 4,000 jobs
per year in an economy with 130 million workers does not seem like a
huge obstacle. But the coal industry has strong congressional representa-
tion and great folk songs. So a global warming policy that imposes high
