New assessments indicate Britain’s Conservative led government has estimated that the cost of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 could be 40 per cent higher than one given by official climate advisers.
According to Reuters Newsagency the Financial Times newspaper has cited a finance ministry letter as the source of the assessment.
Last month Britain’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said the country should aim for a full elimination of net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared with an earlier target of an 80 per cent reduction, in order to limit future global temperature rises.
The CCC said this would cost one to two per cent of gross domestic product each year, or about US$64 billion annually.
Reuters reports new estimates by the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) pointed to costs at the higher end of this range, finance minister Philip Hammond wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May.
“The Committee on Climate Change estimate that reaching net zero emissions by 2050 will cost circa 50 billion pounds per annum by 2050. BEIS’s own analysis find the costs to be 40 per cent higher, at around 70 billion pounds per annum,” Mr Hammond wrote in the letter, a copy of which the Financial Times published online.
Either way, the total cost would comfortably exceed US$1.28 trillion, Mr Hammond said in the letter.
“While these costs are extremely significant in their own right, they fail to describe the impacts on different sectors of the economy, as well as the profound implications for households, businesses and the Exchequer,” Mr Hammond wrote.
Key industries such as steel risked becoming economically uncompetitive or in need of permanent public subsidies, he added, while millions of households would face the disruption and expense of replacing natural gas-powered boilers.
Reuters reports Britain’s finance ministry declined to comment on the leaked document, and a spokeswoman for Ms May also declined to comment directly on the estimates in the letter.
Many estimates did not factor in the cost of not acting on climate change, and costs were for the economy as a whole, not just for the government, she told reporters.
“It’s not really right to frame it as a trade-off for public spending,” she said.
Britain’s government is in the process of deciding whether to adopt the CCC’s recommendations, potentially before Ms May steps down as Prime Minster after the Conservative Party selects a new leader.
EcoNews is an independent publication that relies on contributions from its readers.
WE’RE BUILDING A PLATFORM WITH A CLEAR FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL GOOD. CONTRIBUTE AND TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE AN IMPACT.
