Just read this SF Chronicle piece about the impact of the Climate and Clean Energy solutions bill on GDP. Seems narrow to me:The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the House-passed climate change bill were to become law, the U.S. gross domestic product would be 0.2 percent to 0.7 percent less than its potential in 2020. In 2050, the GDP could be up to 3.4 percent less than it would be without a cap-and-trade plan, the CBO said.
How about benefits to GDP (and reduced negative impacts to GDP) from reduced pollution and associated health expenses, more stable, secure energy sources and predictable pricing, creating millions of jobs from clean tech (including sectors that we can only dream about right now, like people could only dream about the internet in the 80's), stopping the disappearance of the world's fresh water supplies, not having to spend billions trillions of tax dollars defending oil supplies in the most unstable regions on the planet, and...you get the picture?
The article did continue that:
All of the price estimates for the climate change legislation are predicated on economic assumptions and in some cases leave out major factors, including: how pollution allowances might be distributed, and what new technologies to curb emissions and create emission-free power - even those not envisioned today - could be spurred on by new costs on carbon dioxide emissions.
This is exactly why the world is starting to talk seriously about new measures for tracking the health of our economy. GDP just doesn't cut it for capturing the benefits that climate change and clean energy solutions offer for maintaining the health of both human well being and the ecosystem services upon which it depends.
Read more>>
Want more details on the problems with the CBO's numbers than I have time to get into? Read David Roberts' puppy-cute rant about them...
No comments:
Post a Comment