Back in 2009 Thinkprogress wrote about a study that received too little attention at the time. Given the unrelenting lies about the science behind global warming and its impacts, it's timely to take another look at what it said:
Scientists led by a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [warn] that the UN negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts.
The real costs of adaptation are likely to be 2-3 times greater than estimates made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)...
The study finds that the mean “Net present value of climate change impacts” in the A2 scenario [850 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2 in 2100] $1240 TRILLION with no adaptation, but “only” $890 trillion with adaptation.
The mean [annual] impacts in 2060 are about $1.5 trillion….with a small probability of impacts as large as $20 trillion.
But here’s the key point the media and the authors failed to convey. In the “aggressive abatement” case (450 ppm), the mean “Net present value [NPV] of climate change impacts” is only $410 trillion — or $275 trillion with adaptation. So stabilizing at 450 ppm reduces NPV impacts by $615 to $830 trillion. But the abatement NPV cost is only $110 trillion — a 6-to-1 savings or better.
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