WSJ: Does the Inflation Reduction Act help mitigate climate change – What’s the point of that?
Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t M; Bjorn Lomborg removes the hype surrounding President Biden Green New Deal The Inflation Reduction Act, in The Wall Street Journal is increasingly skeptical of climate.
The Inflation Reduction Act Doesn’t Help Mitigating Climate Change
Democrats are cheering, but by 2100 it will likely drop temperatures to just 0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit.
By Bjorn Lomborg
August 23, 2022 6:11 p.m. ET…
While the administration talks about cutting emissions, it never seems to upvote the law’s impact on temperatures and sea levels — for good reason. If you attach the predicted emissions declines to the climate model used for all the major UN climate reports, it turned out global temperature will drop to just 0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. It is assumed that the law’s emissions reductions end when its funding ends after 2030. But even if you are confident that they will be maintained somehow through 2100 without interruption. During the period, the impact on global temperatures will remain mostly negligible, at 0.028 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Of course we don’t have to use Lomborg’s words for that. The US government estimates the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce emissions by 1000 MMT CO2 equivalent by 2030 (a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to one billion tons of CO2), or 125 MMT per year (1000 ÷ 8 = 125).
But according to International Energy Agencyof which the United States is a member, Every year the world emits the equivalent of 31500 MMT CO2.
Calculate percentage reduction: 125MMT per year ÷ 31500MMT per year global emissions = 0.3% reduction in global CO2 emissions.
So Biden’s $369 billion in climate spending (source Website of the Senate Democratic Party) has reduced CO2 by 0.3% over the next 10 years, assuming everything goes according to plan.
Interestingly, Biden’s emission reduction projections provide us with a mathematical method to estimate the total cost of 100% global net zero:
Global Net Zero Total Cost (using Biden Inflation Act Numbers):
100% ÷ 0.3% x 369 billion USD = $123 trillion US dollars.
This $123 trillion Biden estimate is roughly the same size as other estimates I’ve seen, like Estimated $125 trillion from the United Nationsalthough there are much higher estimates like $275 trillion estimate from McKinsey Global Institute.
Think about what it means to spend $123 trillion on Net Zero.
At best, spending all that cash on Net Zero won’t result in an improved quality of life – all we can hope for at the end of the 123k spend billion dollars is a grid that works exactly like our existing one.
And of course, by wasting all that money on Net Zero, we’re missing out on the good stuff that $123 trillion could have bought – more money for pensioners, clean water and food. products for everyone, better schools and hospitals, and improved roads and transportation systems.
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