Today’s Soaring Energy Prices Are Only the Beginning

Current ‘net zero’ plans will cost many trillions while doing little to slow global warming

By Bjorn Lomborg. Excerpts:

"In the U.K., real electricity prices have doubled since 2003, after dropping fivefold over the 20th century. British climate policy had already added more than £10 billion annually to the national electricity bill by 2020. Even before last year’s energy price hikes, 50 million to 80 million people in the European Union couldn’t afford to heat their homes sufficiently. That’s likely to get worse, as this year European energy bills are expected to increase by almost $400 billion. And in the U.S., gasoline prices soared to a seven-year high in October, while gas heating is predicted to be 30% more expensive this winter than the previous one."

"Bank of America finds that achieving net zero globally by 2050 will cost $150 trillion over 30 years—almost twice the combined annual gross domestic product of every country on earth. The annual cost ($5 trillion) is more than all the world’s governments and households spend every year on education. Academic studies find the policy is even costlier. The largest database on climate scenarios shows that keeping temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius—a less stringent policy than net zero by midcentury—would likely cost $8.3 trillion, or 3.3% of world GDP, every year by 2050, and the costs keep escalating so that by the end of the century taxpayers will have paid about $1 quadrillion—a thousand trillion—in total."

"New Delhi says it will only keep moving toward net zero if the rest of the world pays it $1 trillion by 2030, which won’t happen. Other developing nations are showing the same understandable reluctance. This means that achieving global net-zero emissions by 2050 will be impossible. Those cuts that are enforced will most likely occur in rich countries, taking a smaller notch out of global emissions at high cost."

"The official independent assessment done in New Zealand shows achieving net zero by midcentury will cost 16% of its GDP annually by 2050. That is more than its entire current budget for social security, welfare, health, education, police, courts, defense and the environment—combined."

"reducing emissions only 80% by 2050 will cost more than $2.1 trillion in today’s money annually by midcentury. That is more than $5,000 per American a year. The cost of achieving 100% reductions would be far higher."

"If you divide Bank of America’s annual cost for net-zero emissions globally, it comes to more than $600 a person—including the world’s poorest, in India and Africa. Even in a rich country like the U.S., most voters are unwilling to give the government more than about $100 a year to fight climate change, and a couple of hundred dollars is the limit for a majority of voters in many other countries, such as China and the U.K. France has already seen sustained protests against gasoline price hikes of only 12 cents a gallon."