Global warming saves lives; Kyoto could cause 80,000 more deaths p.a.

probe

An article I came across on my travels a few days ago in the "Climate Change" magazine in the Financial Times dated 3.6.2008:

Bottom line - climate change initiatives are a waste of money and could cost lives. It costs $20 to save 1 tonne of CO2 from being emitted, the damage done by 1 tonne of CO2 is about $2. This money could be spent far more effectively, if the objectives were approached on business decision making lines.

(see: www.ft.com for further articles on the topic)

By Bjørn Lomborg

(Bjørn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, author of The Sceptical Environmentalist and Cool It, and an adjunct professor of the Copenhagen Business School.)

quote:

Environmentalist campaigners and celebrities have pounded the message that the world must concentrate above all else on reducing carbon emissions to tackle climate change.

The food crisis threatening to plunge 100m people into poverty has myriad causes and this fixation is one of the main ones. We have grown crops to feed cars instead of people.

Limited resources mean we cannot fix all of the world’s problems. Misplaced fear has driven us to concentrate on a poor way to tackle climate change instead of embracing the best solutions to the biggest problems.

This fear has been stoked by campaigners such as former US vice-president Al Gore, who warn of a looming 20 foot wall of water. The IPCC says we should expect ocean level rises of between half a foot and two feet this century. We should remember that very little land was lost when the sea rose that much in the past century-and-a-half – and that it costs relatively little to protect the land from rising tides. In many places we actually gained land.

Activists are correct when they point out that climate change will mean more heatwaves and heat-related deaths. But rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, and the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat.

According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change’s effects on health, global warming will save lives. By 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year – but 1.8m fewer people will die from cold.

The Kyoto Protocol is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heatwaves. It could actually cause 80,000 more deaths each year because fewer people would be saved from cold-related deaths in the winter. Urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures during heatwaves more effectively – and much more cheaply – by planting trees, adding water features and reducing heat-soaking black asphalt in at-risk cities.

We know that global warming will mean more precipitation and the risk of more flooding. Yet addressing this through Kyoto-style polices would do almost nothing at very high costs.

We could respond most effectively by managing people and wealth on floodplains. We could improve public planning, inform people better about flood risks, cancel public subsidies to settlements in floodplains, use levees more sparingly and allow floodplains to do their job and flood to provide buffers to other land.

Global warming is also going to increase the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 per cent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 per cent.

Our focus on cutting emissions means it is easy to miss the fact that malaria death rates are already climbing in sub-Saharan Africa – not because of climate change but because of poverty. Poor, corrupt governments find it hard to afford the combination of spraying, mosquito nets and effective treatment that could together eliminate this disease. Spending $3bn a year (or 2 per cent of the Kyoto Protocol’s cost) on these measures could reduce malaria incidence by almost 50 per cent within a decade. For every dollar we spend saving one person through climate policies, we could save 35,000 through direct intervention.

In each area, current climate change policies are not the most effective approach. That does not mean we should ignore man-made climate change.

We know that the typical cost of cutting a tonne of carbon dioxide is about $20. Yet, according to a wealth of scientific literature, the damage from a tonne of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. Spending $20 to do $2 of good is not smart.

The way to reduce the cost of lowering emissions is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy. At the negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009, every nation should commit to spending 0.05 per cent of its gross domestic product exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies. This would increase global R&D 10-fold, yet cost almost one-tenth of the cost of Kyoto. Talk about win-win.

Climate models show that the Kyoto Protocol would have minuscule effects. Even with the US and Australia signed on and everyone living up to their promises, the effects of global warming would be postponed by just seven days at the end of the century, at a cost of $180bn a year. Focusing scarce resources on such poor solutions to climate change seems especially lamentable when we consider what this money could achieve, given the other challenges facing the planet.

Research conducted for the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 project, which gathered Nobel laureates last month to prioritise the soundest solutions to the biggest problems, revealed that $1bn (0.5 per cent of Kyoto) spent on tuberculosis identification and treatment would save 1m lives in the developing world, while $200m (one-tenth of 1 per cent of Kyoto) dedicated to getting low-cost drugs that are widely available in rich nations to the world’s poorest could avert 300,000 heart attacks a year.

The Copenhagen Consensus research also tells us that if we made preventing conflict a priority by spending $2bn on peacekeeping troops, we could avoid three out of the four new civil wars that are estimated to occur this decade. Or for just $19m (one-hundredth of 1 per cent of Kyoto) a year iodising salt, we could practically wipe out goitre.

Low-cost, durable solutions exist for many global challenges. Our resources are limited but have the potential to achieve a staggering amount of good, if only we focus first on the best responses to the biggest problems.



Unquote

.probe

ircoha

the damage from a tonne of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2

So extinction can now be measured in $2 units.

AngryHippie

probe wrote: »

Bottom line - climate change initiatives are a waste of money and could cost lives. It costs $20 to save 1 tonne of CO2 from being emitted, the damage done by 1 tonne of CO2 is about $2. This money could be spent far more effectively, if the objectives were approached on business decision making lines.

damage done to what, how much rainforest or icecap will 2 dollars get.....shame on you financial times....

probe wrote: »

The food crisis threatening to plunge 100m people into poverty has myriad causes and this fixation is one of the main ones. We have grown crops to feed cars instead of people.

We also have too many people and not enough time

probe wrote: »

Activists are correct when they point out that climate change will mean more heatwaves and heat-related deaths. But rising temperatures will reduce the number of cold spells, and the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat.
According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change’s effects on health, global warming will save lives. By 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year – but 1.8m fewer people will die from cold.

Think I'd rather take my chances with the cold, Bear Grylls style, If you want hot, go to a hot place

probe wrote: »

The Kyoto Protocol is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heatwaves. It could actually cause 80,000 more deaths each year because fewer people would be saved from cold-related deaths in the winter. Urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures during heatwaves more effectively – and much more cheaply – by planting trees, adding water features and reducing heat-soaking black asphalt in at-risk cities.

Unfortunately the planners have already let everyone down on that one, Unless the suggestion of retro fitting water features and green spaces in built up urban or metropolitan areas.....Who's gonna foot the bill for the CPO's on that one !
Good long term plan for regeneration projects, but meanwhile Kyoto seems like a prudent precautionary measure

probe wrote: »

We know that global warming will mean more precipitation and the risk of more flooding. Yet addressing this through Kyoto-style polices would do almost nothing at very high costs.

Perhaps, But Kyoto is about reducing the damage we do to our environment, and less interference with it as a policy, should reduce future developments that leave people exposed, but without preparing the infrastructure necessary to cope with a worst case scenario

probe wrote: »

We could respond most effectively by managing people and wealth on floodplains. We could improve public planning, inform people better about flood risks, cancel public subsidies to settlements in floodplains, use levees more sparingly and allow floodplains to do their job and flood to provide buffers to other land.

Any competent local planning authority has already put these measures in place as policy....How to increase competence.....:rolleyes:

probe wrote: »

We know that the typical cost of cutting a tonne of carbon dioxide is about $20. Yet, according to a wealth of scientific literature, the damage from a tonne of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. Spending $20 to do $2 of good is not smart.

I'd really love to see the recepits for this...repeating this point tells me this entire article is some filler material or more white noise hissing away my attention

probe wrote: »

The way to reduce the cost of lowering emissions is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy. At the negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009, every nation should commit to spending 0.05 per cent of its gross domestic product exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies. This would increase global R&D 10-fold, yet cost almost one-tenth of the cost of Kyoto. Talk about win-win.

sounds like a not bad idea. Doubt the Arab nations are arsed though, nor the China, and even the US could be a little bit tight fisted since their currency scuttered down the s-bend

probe wrote: »

Climate models show that the Kyoto Protocol would have minuscule effects. Even with the US and Australia signed on and everyone living up to their promises, the effects of global warming would be postponed by just seven days at the end of the century, at a cost of $180bn a year. Focusing scarce resources on such poor solutions to climate change seems especially lamentable when we consider what this money could achieve, given the other challenges facing the planet.

Again some speculative maths, look at the 2003 Tsunami aftermath, the chunks of money went to build resorts, the rest of the money was "trickled down" (like a one eyed mouse, weeping) to the local populations

Read One World by Peter Singer. Some interesting ideas on global harmony

probe wrote: »

Research conducted for the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 project, which gathered Nobel laureates last month to prioritise the soundest solutions to the biggest problems, revealed that $1bn (0.5 per cent of Kyoto) spent on tuberculosis identification and treatment would save 1m lives in the developing world, while $200m (one-tenth of 1 per cent of Kyoto) dedicated to getting low-cost drugs that are widely available in rich nations to the world’s poorest could avert 300,000 heart attacks a year.

This sounds solid, but completely ignores the fact that IMF loans made to the governments of the "worlds poorest" are wasted on weapons systems sold by who ????
How about giving them the treatments and supplies and just keeping a few hundred boxes of landmines, cluster munitions, bombs, and maybe a jet or two

Low-cost, durable solutions exist for many global challenges. Our resources are limited but have the potential to achieve a staggering amount of good, if only we focus first on the best responses to the biggest problems.

So the US, China, who is third these days ? Iran, North Korea ?:rolleyes:

Húrin

Lomborg lies again. Biofuels do indeed threaten food security, thus most environmentalists oppose them. But an even greater threat to food security is rapid climate change.