Study: Global warming could cost U.S. plenty
“The Cost of Climate Change,” produced for the Natural Resources Defense Council, suggests that if present trends continue the effects of global warming — drought in some places, flooding elsewhere, higher electrical and water costs — could hit nearly $4 trillion a year (in today’s dollars) by the end of this century. Study authors Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton of Tufts University calculate that at 3.6 percent of the gross domestic product — slightly more than what is currently spent on defense or Medicare.
The study cites four major cost centers as causing most of the added expense of global warming:
- Hurricane damage on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts will increase 35 fold, from $12 billion to $422 billion a year, and the death toll is expected to rise from an average of 120 per year to 760 due to stronger tropical storms and higher sea levels.
- Real estate losses from rising sea levels — estimated at 45 inches by 2100 — will amount to $360 billion a year by 2100.
- Energy costs will rise by $141 billion. Though some U.S. residents will enjoy lower heating bills, most will spend more on air conditioning (the study suggests Anchorage in 2010 will feel like New York in 2008, while Albuquerque will feel like Houston).
- Water will be in short supply, particularly in drought-prone areas. At an estimated additional cost of $950 billion a year by 2100, the study suggests revamping water supplies will be the biggest single cost to the United States if nothing is done to stop global warming.
Those four issues alone will account for $1.9 trillion, or 1.8 percent of GDP by 2100, the authors say. Other costs will boost the total to 3.6 percent of GDP.
“We know how to avert most of these damages through strong national and international action to reduce the emissions that cause global warming” the authors say. “But we must act now. The longer we wait, the more painful — and expensive — the consequences will be.”
The chances of inaction, however, appear to be slim. In early June the U.S. Senate is expected to take up one of the leading federal plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Warner/Lieberman Climate Security Act. If the measure bogs down — over estimates that it would increase gasoline costs by 50 cents a gallon, for example, or by those who say it isn’t strong enough — there are alternatives. Regional organizations, such as the Western Climate Initiative and the New England Governors/Eastern Canadian Premiers, are working on their own carbon-reduction plans. On an even smaller scale, air quality regulators in the San Francisco area this week approved a tax on carbon emissions.
Still, as NRDC’s Dan Lashof said at a news conference releasing the study, opposition to any sort of carbon-reduction effort is expected. It may be costly for the United States to lead the international effort and cut its own greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next 40 years.
“This report,” he said, “provides the other side of the ledger.”
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