Please stop filming Climate Disaster Porn. Now

Partha Chakraborty-

Partha Chakraborty

Partha Chakraborty is an Indian-born immigrant; a naturalized US Citizen since 2018. Educated in India and at Cornell University, Partha is currently an entrepreneur in water technologies, Blockchain, and wealth management in the US and in India. The views expressed are his own.

 

It is the morning of Halloween in the United States. I am too old to beg for candy, but I may accompany my teenager for a walk around fake blood, gore and haunted lights my town is so famous for the spectacle. Or, I will just sit at home and browse the web for made-up horror with the predicated demise of humanity. With COP26 about to start, there is no dearth of concerned voices screaming at the top of their voice about the impending doom the earth is to witness from nature’s wrath within our lifetime. Save humanity, please.

I will ignore the irony of having 25,000+ people flying in, or that massive diesel generator had to be hauled to power charging stations needed for the electric fleet hauling VVIPs. Let’s start with a tautology spotlighted by Yoichi Kaya, an energy economist and Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo.

Which implies:

Traditional narratives of climate crisis only talk about (3) and (4) – a gross misrepresentation of nuances involved.

A recollection of facts as-is is in order. Since end of the WWII, fossil fuel consumption increased by 550% and CO2 emissions increased by 500%, world warmed about 0.650C. Life expectancy since 1950 has risen from 48 years to 71.4 years, an increase of almost 50% in one lifetime, the first time the world has ever seen such improvement. In Africa gains have been almost 68%. US corn yields have increased by 25% since 2000 and 88% since 1980, a steady increase of “an average of two bushes per year per acre every year for the past 40 years”. Hundreds of millions have been lifted from extreme poverty, over 55% reduction since 1999, and since 2000 we have cut down the proportion of undernourished people by almost a quarter. These are all amazing developments. Going back to the framework of Dr. Kaya, GDP per Capita has risen by 10 X – yes, ten times – since CO2started ticking up in the 19th Century. During the same time global population multiplied by 7 X. More recently, in the period 2000-2016, GDP per Capita increased 62% in Africa, 54% in Latin America, 111% in East Asia and 87% in West Asia, even if the population collectively almost doubled. No wonder items (3) and (4) have not kept up, thereby the rise in CO2 in the air.

Through it all we have most made this world a better place to live for youngsters – DALY (“Disability Adjusted Life Years”) burden from diseases went down by 50% for 0-5 years-old since 1990. Wow!

Let’s ponder about the future touted to be so bleak if there is no initiative on climate. Nobel-winning Economist William Nordhaus calculates that a 6.30F (3.50C) elevation of world temperatures by 2100 – at the top range what could happen with no additional action per all accounts —will cause 2.8% a year loss of global GDP. His numbers are consistent with UN estimate of 2.6% loss of GDP for a 6.60F rise. In context, OECD expects GDP per capita to rise to USD 55,000 in 2018 dollars from USD 14,500 in 2018, a 2.44 X increase. Even at the worst of global warming, we will knock off the far estimate by 5% at most. Not a welcome outcome, not bad either. Definitely not earth shattering, pun intended.

Scary headlines like “underwater future” are doing rounds based on analyses that come from a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The study does predict serious consequences if societies do not adapt, but the study itself does mention “in reality, societies are likely to adapt”, with dikes in this case. By raising height of dikes, building and properly maintaining dikes, cost to life and property become almost insignificant. From the study: “Without adaptation, 0.2–4.6% of global population is expected to be flooded annually in 2100 under 25–123 cm of global mean sea-level rise, with expected annual losses of 0.3–9.3% of global gross domestic product.” Whereas, “global costs of protecting the coast with dikes are significant with annual investment and maintenance costs of US$ 12–71 billion in 2100” or about 0.008% of global GDP, only. With dikes, only 15,000 people will be affected annually from coastal floods, as opposed to 187 million otherwise, and a far cry from 3.4 million affected in 2000. Just for comparison, if we impose the harshest restrictions needed to limit rise in global temperatures to 20C by 2100, we will still have 85 million people affected from foods without dikes. If you impose these stringent restrictions on top of the dikes, gain will be minimal – 10,000 affected from floods as opposed to 15,000. Choice, my dear Watson, is elementary.

Heat waves could kill thousands in the US with rising temperatures – not if we use more air-conditioning.  Wildfires have substantially improved globally, no matter how it feels. A study published at the Journal of Geophysical Research looked at historical data and found globally over 4.0% of land-mass was subjected to burning every year every year till as recently as 1950, dropped to 3.5% early ‘70’s and stayed there almost a decade. 2021 will likely see it drop to 2.5% – a drop of almost 30% since 1950’s attributed mostly to higher quality of life and better property rights. Even if a World Wildlife Fund study s conceded “land burned globally has actually been steadily declining since it started to be recorded in 1900”. WHO claims global warming may cost 85,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition in 2050 as crop yields will rise slower at higher temperatures, resulting in lower calories available. Putting it in context, WHO also claims a lower growth outlook will cause 2 million additional malnutrition deaths as opposed to 300,000 in a high-growth outcome. In other words, the positive impact of higher economic growth is much higher than negative impact of global warming.

The story repeats when we study other headlines. Adaptation is much cheaper and achieves at least as much while avoiding costs of extreme climate-related actions. Every. Single. Time.

So how much do climate actions cost? Before 1900 the single biggest source of air pollution was indoor burning of coal, wood or cow-dung for anything from cooking to heating, it still kills over 70,000 people a year, mostly in Africa. Stopping pollution in 1900 would have killed 23% of humanity. Alternatives came along, each with own climate costs. Similarities abound in today’s challenges. A study by Bjorn Lomborg of Copenhagen Business School and The Hoover Institution published at “Technological Forecasting and Social Change” in 2020 summarizes as follows: “The Paris Agreement, if fully implemented, will cost $819–$1,890 billion per year in 2030, yet will reduce emissions by just 1% of what is needed to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Each dollar spent on Paris will likely produce climate benefits worth 11¢.” In contrast, if we did nothing, yes nothing, we will be in IPCC’s “SS5” Scenario (the “fossil fuel driven” future). In that eventuality, by 2050, GDP per Capita will be USD 48,000 higher and extreme poverty will reduce by 26 million each year. “The popular 2°C target, in contrast, is unrealistic and would leave the world more than $250 trillion worse off” with tens of millions subjected to continued extreme poverty.

A brief glimpse of the Paris Accord’s intended future came in 2020 when lockdowns forced lower carbon emission, but not enough to meet the targets.  In 2021 it looks like we will have only met half of the target even if much of the world is still in lockdown. Paris Accord demands that global emissions need to plunge further every year for rest of this decade, a 11X the reduction in 2030 compared to what we did in 2020. Really? Unforced errors from high-minded but ill-advised programs are already causing headaches. Activists forced a reduction in upstream oil and gas capital investment, essential to keep reserves at adequate level, by 43% in 2019 compared to 2014, 2021 will be substantially lower still. If this winter we face continued shortage of heating oil, you know why. In Texas ill-advised diversification of power generation without winterization froze, literally, generation plants forcing the state to face unimaginable price volatility. 81% of world’s energy comes from fossil fuels today and, with Paris Accord diktats, the number will only drop to 73% by 2040 but will raise electricity prices by multiples. Remember that even with updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) world will not reach anywhere close to the “less-than-20C” goal. All that sacrifice, why??

This is not an argument to sit still. It is a plea to change the state of mind that goes into solving it. First, accept that Governments are not here to serve all our wet-dreams, especially when government actions cloud out private enterprise. We need innovation, risk taking and market’s capacity to allocate capital more efficiently than anybody. Second, an exhortation to study adaptation as an acceptable path forward. As we have established repeatedly in this article, adaptation beats any top-down diktat in pretty much every metric. Third, please acknowledge that economic growth and all the goods it brings – lower poverty levels, reduced deaths from malnutrition, lower infant mortality – trounces sense of discomfort in the rich world who already have the capacity to live through it.

A personal request to the young and privileged. Maybe you never knew anybody who faced real poverty and lack of food, bless your heart, but there are billions who do – and billions who are on edge of the same. Instead of your made-up sense of crises, try devising market-based policies that actually lift up these billions. Try inventing adaptation techniques that will actually save more lives. For anybody gathering around heated private pools to talk about climate this November, please remember California uses more electricity to heat pools than all habitants of the state of Uganda. Maybe you can just use the neighborhood Y for a lap? For the 25,000 people gathering in Glasgow, did anybody even mention videoconferencing?

Please, please, please, for God’s sake, stop the extreme hyperbole. It is not the “last best chance” to save humanity. Humanity shall live and prosper no matter what. Even better with adaptation.