Benefits of ‘drastic’ climate action outweigh costs
Say more than 700 economists from around the globe; India baulks at carbon neutral target
The cost of global warming will far outweigh the cost of rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, more than 700 economists from around the world said yesterday in an unprecedented call to climate action.
A major international survey found that nearly three-quarters of the economists responding believed that "immediate and drastic" action was needed to limit the fallout of climate change, warning that the costs of failing to slash carbon pollution would rapidly balloon to reach trillions of dollars every year.
Nearly nine out of 10 (89 percent) said they believed that climate change would worsen global inequality, and they were nearly unanimous in believing that the benefits of net-zero emissions by mid-century would vastly outweigh the costs.
The consensus reached by survey respondents suggested that the projected economic fallout from climate change would reach $1.7 trillion annually by 2025 and roughly $30 trillion per year by 2075.
By contrast, 65 percent of respondents said that the costs of renewable energy technology such as wind and solar would continue to fall over the next decade and estimated that half of the world's energy mix would be green by 2050.
Meanwhile, India is unlikely to bind itself to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goal by 2050, government sources told Reuters, despite diplomatic pressure from the United States and Britain to do so to help slow global warming.
India is the world's third-biggest carbon emitter after China and the US and thus is vital in the fight against climate change.
China has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060 while US is expected to announce a 2030 target for reducing emissions at a summit next month.
But India's energy demand is projected to grow by more than any other nation over the next two decades and the worry is that it may have to cut back on consumption if it were to tie itself to a hard emissions deadline, two sources involved in the discussions told Reuters.
India will instead stick to the Paris pledge to reduce its carbon footprint by 33-35% from its 2005 levels by 2030 and is aiming to outperform those goals, the source said.