The energy transition will be much cheaper than you think
Climate change is neither the end of the world nor an expensive hoax. It is a real and difficult problem, but one that can be curbed affordably.
The cost of a transition away from fossil fuels is consistently exaggerated. Analysts have for decades severely overestimated energy demand and underestimated the speed of technological advances.
People who want to do more to fight climate change and those who want to do less tend to have one thing in common. Both sides agree that decarbonising the world economy will be dauntingly expensive. At this week’s annual UN climate summit, in Baku, Azerbaijan, the numbers being bandied around are in the tens of trillions of dollars.
Many see such spending as a colossal waste. Donald Trump, America’s president-elect, denounced the Paris Agreement to cut global emissions, reached at the 2015 climate summit, as something that “hurts Americans, and cost a fortune”. He withdrew the US from it in his first presidency. Because the US has since rejoined, he is likely to do so again. Climate activists, for the most part, do not dispute the hair-raising price tag; they simply consider the expense worthwhile when weighed against the catastrophic damage unchecked climate change is likely to inflict.
The Economist
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