World Bank: Fighting Climate Change Would Boost Global Economy Up To $2.6 Trillion A Year
Or we can make the Koch brother richer. Wonder which path our elected officials will choose.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/24/3452323/world-bank-climate-change-economy/
World Bank: Fighting Climate Change Would Boost Global Economy Up To $2.6 Trillion A Year
An important new World Bank report concludes that just a few key policies aimed at cutting carbon pollution would boost the global economy. The study “Climate-Smart Development: Adding Up the Benefits of Actions that Help Build Prosperity, End Poverty and Combat Climate Change,” looks at the European Union plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and the U.S.
The Bank finds that if all six embrace three sets of policies for clean transportation plus energy efficiency in industry in buildings, “the annual benefits of just these policies in 2030 include an estimated GDP growth of between $1.8 trillion and $2.6 trillion.” Furthermore, the report found that “these policies alone would account for 30 percent of the total reduction needed in 2030 to limit global warming to 2°C [3.6°F].”
The overall benefits are staggering, as these policies avoid 94,000 premature pollution-related deaths and 8.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions. They save nearly 16 billion kilowatt-hours of energy — roughly equivalent to taking 2 billion cars off the road.
This finding matches that of the recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report, “Energy Technology Perspectives.” The IEA found that an aggressive effort to deploy renewable energy and energy efficiency (and energy storage) to keep global warming below the dangerous threshold of 2°C would be astoundingly cost-effective, “resulting in net savings of $71 trillion” by 2050.
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