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$290 trillion to save the planet is a bargain
The longer we wait, the faster the bill accumulates, as does the damage from global warming.
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An aerial view of a burning area of Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Every 1 deg C of heating cuts global GDP by 12 per cent, say economists.
PHOTO: AFP
Mark Gongloff and Liam Denning
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If you have ever carried a credit card balance, you know the pain of watching interest charges accumulate, turning what was once a high but manageable expense into an express ticket to bankruptcy. The clean-energy transition is kind of like this: The longer we delay paying for it, the more crushing the cost will become.
BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) latest New Energy Outlook, a 250-page state of the transition address, estimates the world must invest US$215 trillion (S$290 trillion) by 2050 to zero out carbon emissions and limit global heating to a merely disastrous 1.75 deg C above pre-industrial averages. That amount is what economists call “a lot”.
