Economic Blessing, not Burden
Turns out the Center for Climate Change in Berkeley wasn’t the only group studying the effects of action on climate change for California’s economy. The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) also recently published a report (.pdf) outlining some of the benefits California can achieve by taking action on climate change.
...this study finds that carbon reductions sufficient to meet the Governor’s targets can be achieved at no net cost to consumers and likely at a net benefit in both 2010 and 2020. my emphasis
What I find interesting is that while CCAP originally used $30 per metric ton as a cutoff for determining the most attractive measures, they ultimately arrived at figures way below $30: $5.25 per ton and $5.77 per ton in 2010 and 2020, respectively. The reason is even more interesting:
A significant portion of the measures have a negative cost (e.g., the economic benefits of implementing the measure exceed the economic costs.). ... An even larger portion of the measures identified have a cost between zero and $10 per metric ton CO2e.
While I’m not going to exclaim how wonderful these results are and jump on the bandwagon without thinking twice, I do think these results constitute a significant response to Bush’s excuse for not signing the Kyoto Protocol: “For America, complying with those mandates would have a negative economic impact, with layoffs of workers and price increases.”
NRDC estimates the expected savings to consumers from energy efficiency the State of California are expected to result in aggregate savings of nearly $527 million in 2010.
I was curious about what $527 million can get you these days. Turns out that it’ll get you a little less than three days in Iraq at $122,820 per minute.