The bill to "fix" climate change gets more realistic

As the World Economic Forum gets under way, another study surfaces that show another educated guess at how much doing something meaningful about climate change will actually cost.  As someone who has been say this is at least a $100 Trillion project since the early 1990s, I always welcome anyone who thinks along these lines and hope that they have more success than I in getting governments and other institutions to spend the money.  This from Businessweek.

Averting Climate Change May Cost $700 Billion a Year

By Alex Morales on January 21, 2013

About $700 billion a year of new spending on renewable power, low-carbon transport and energy efficiency is needed to meet the United Nations goal to cap temperature rises, a report for the World Economic Forum showed.

That cash is needed in addition to the $5 trillion a year countries must spend on infrastructure for agriculture, transport, power and water through 2020, according to a report released today by the consultant Accenture Plc (ACN) for the forum’s Green Growth Action Alliance.

“This development needs to be greened by re-evaluating investment priorities,” former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, chairman of the alliance, wrote in a forward to the report. “There remains a considerable shortfall in investment. Closing this gap is our collective task and one that we cannot afford to fail.”

The World Bank says the planet is on track to warm by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, double the level deemed safe by scientists working in a UN process. To rein in warming, governments must use public money to leverage as much as five times the amount in private investment in clean technologies, according to the report.

“The G20 governments must accelerate the phasing-out of fossil-fuel subsidies, enact long-term carbon price signals, enable greater free trade in green technologies, and expand investment in climate adaptation,” the report said.

The WEF holds its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland from Jan. 23 to Jan. 27. The Green Growth Action Alliance is a coalition of more than 50 financial institutions, companies, governments and non-governmental organizations that’s co- ordinated by the WEF. Members include General Electric Co.’s energy division, HSBC Holdings Plc and Morgan Stanley. more

And for those of you who believe I have written about this subject before, you are right:

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Spend the freaking money!!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Sustainable energy strategies

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Oh, grow up

Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's WAY harder than it looks

Monday, October 4, 2010

We just want to see your plan—John Lennon, Revolution (1968)