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Humans have caused 1.5 °C of long-term global warming according to new estimates

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399 points gmays | 3 comments | 17 Nov 24 18:49 UTC | HN request time: 0.614s | source
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oezi ◴[17 Nov 24 19:06 UTC] No.42166179[source]▶
Looking into the numbers a couple if months ago I was surprised how little it costs to stop climate change.

On the order of 100-200 trillion USD. Which is roughly 100-200% of global yearly GDP. Or 2-5% of yearly GDP until 2050. This could well be provided by printing money at all the federal reserve banks.

This investment will likely bring in a positive return on investment because it reduces the negative climate impacts.

Without such investments the downstream costs in climate change adaptation will be very expensive

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llsf ◴[17 Nov 24 21:21 UTC] No.42167400[source]▶
"...2-5% of yearly GDP until 2050"

Estimate is COVID in 2020 cost 3.4% of GDP (source: https://www.statista.com/topics/6139/covid-19-impact-on-the-...)

We are talking about one new COVID (2020 style), every single year for 25 years. That is significant enough to not spontaneously do it.

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1. Mizza ◴[17 Nov 24 21:27 UTC] No.42167445[source]▶
There's a big difference between printing money to trick people into continuing to buy stuff while production is halted during a pandemic and massive investments in new energy sources and technology development and deployment.
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2. alwayslikethis ◴[17 Nov 24 21:33 UTC] No.42167515[source]▶
Any large expenditure is going to cause inflation since it competes with the rest of market for materials, labor, or any other limited resource. It doesn't mean we shouldn't do it but we can't just ignore the consequences.
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3. Aachen ◴[18 Nov 24 08:38 UTC] No.42170759[source]▶
I think that last sentence captures the whole reason we're having this discussion