Bah! "For the industry sector, we find that the recent rapid growth in China limits the potential for emission reduction in the next decades, assuming that recently built coal-based industry facilities are in use for the next decades."
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988312000576
So much for support from everyone. "Global stock markets are BETTING ON countries failing to adhere to legally binding carbon emission targets."
Meh. I say this crisis was/is just a prelude to the monster yet coming. Happy huntin', folks.
The gist:
The so-called "carbon bubble" is the result of an over-valuation of oil, coal and gas reserves held by fossil fuel companies. According to a report published on Friday, at least two-thirds of these reserves will have to remain underground if the world is to meet existing internationally agreed targets to avoid the threshold for "dangerous" climate change. If the agreements hold, these reserves will be in effect unburnable and so worthless – leading to massive market losses. But the stock markets are betting on countries' inaction on climate change.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/19/carbon-bubble-financial-crash-crisis
To refresh and/or introduce:
Stern report (2006):
rn and his team set out to examine "the economic impacts of climate change itself" and "the economics of stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere" – plus the policy challenges of creating a low-carbon economy and managing adaption to a changing climate.
/.../ "The evidence shows that ignoring climate change will eventually damage economic growth. /.../"
More specifically, the review warns that ignoring climate change could reduce global GDP by 20% by the end of the century, and that to avoid this risk the world should spend 1% of global GDP a year, starting immediately.
In 2008, however, Stern announced that his report had underestimated the speed and scale of some serious climate impacts and increased his recommendation for expenditure on emissions reductions to 2% of global GDP. Nonetheless, by Stern's analysis, ignoring climate change is still many times more expensive than fixing it.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/15/stern-review
More from Summary of Conclusions (Stern Report, 2006):
This Review has assessed a wide range of evidence on the impacts of climate
change and on the economic costs, and has used a number of different techniques to
assess costs and risks. From all of these perspectives, the evidence gathered by the
Review leads to a simple conclusion: the benefits of strong and early action far
outweigh the economic costs of not acting.
Climate change will affect the basic elements of life for people around the world –
access to water, food production, health, and the environment. Hundreds of millions
of people could suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world
warms.
(http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Summary_of_Conclusions.pdf)
I was talking with somebody about money being devaluated in the future, potentially, since the costs to EVERYBODY in the climate-freakin' world will be so high, that nobody will:
a) have the money
b) be able to pay for sanitation of the damages
c) get the money due to them
I find somewhat similar line of thought, rather more eloquently put, and drastically more substantiated (in economic analysis), in the Stern Report (yeah, that OLD thing) (2006):
"the Review estimates that if we don't act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever.
If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more."
View the full report, chapters, with Executive Summary (short and long), here:
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/sternreview_index.htm
The Carbon Bubble:
Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets
This new research from Carbon Tracker and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE calls for regulators, governments and investors to re-evaluate energy business models against carbon budgets, to prevent $6trillion carbon bubble in the next decade.
http://www.carbontracker.org/wastedcapital
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