Trumps argument for withdrawing from Paris agreement contains multi-trillion dollar math error
Trump’s argument for withdrawing from Paris agreement contains multi-trillion dollar math error
In a cost-benefit analysis, you’re supposed to analyze the costs and the benefits.
-Samantha Page, Climate Reporter at @ThinkProgress
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the United States would abandon the Paris climate agreement, but his justification for withdrawing was rooted in a false economic claim.
Trump claimed that U.S. commitments under the Paris accord would cost the country’s GDP $3 trillion, but the report he took that estimate from “does not take into account potential benefits from avoided emissions.”
In other words: The study did not account for any benefits of participating in a global plan to avoid the worst effects of climate change. It is a report on climate mitigation that ignores climate change. The report also does not consider the economic benefits to renewable energy industries, nor does it consider the health costs that are associated with fossil fuel pollution.
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A 2015 report from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School found that the “present value of the damage caused by human-caused climate change from a moderate warming scenario is an astonishing $400 trillion.”
The same year, a report from Citibank found that not addressing climate change will cost $44 trillion by 2060, while investing in low-carbon energy would save $1.8 trillion through 2040, as compared to a business-as-usual scenario.
https://thinkprogress.org/trillions-cost-no-c617bc9ff0de
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