Climate Dollars and Sense – Preventing Global Warming Is the Cheap Option

The IPCC has now released all three of the reports that comprise its 2014 Fifth Assessment of climate science.  The first report tackled the physical changes in the global climate, while the second addressed climate impacts and adaptation, and the third looked at climate change mitigation.  Ironically, after the second report was published, many media outlets argued that the IPCC was shifting its focus from global warming prevention to adaptation, seemingly unaware that its report on mitigation was scheduled to be published just a few weeks later.

It's important to understand that our choices aren't to either reduce carbon emissions or to do nothing.  Our options are to either reduce carbon emissions or to continue with business-as-usual emissions that will cause accelerating climate change and damage costs beyond what we can accurately estimate.  From an economic perspective, and from a risk management perspective, this should be a no-brainer.

Climate Dollars and Sense – Preventing Global Warming Is the Cheap Option