The first model we will look at is the cost benefit analysis economists use in order to weigh our options on climate change. Cost benefit analysis allows us to compare the cost of emitting greenhouse gas with the benefit of emitting greenhouse gases, which can be to create more power plants to be able to create energy. For example, “according to most conventional calculations, one would need to sacrifice around 2% of the global annual GDP to make a significant difference in the control of emission” (Padilla 526). Many economists have used these numbers to argue that emissions control can threaten economic development. However, this means that the cost of policies trying to reverse climate change amounts to only a couple of years delay in achieving very impressive growth in per capita income levels. Although this is a valid argument, economists tend to forget the effects that greenhouse gas emission has on the environment. In the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia we are explained that “If global warming increases by more than two degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a fifty percent probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible” (Worlds 1). What this entails is that twenty to thirty percent of species will become endangered on Earth and large portions of forests will be affected by droughts. This is only one of the many examples of a cost-benefit analysis that have to do with climate change. The cost is the destruction of the Earth, and the benefit is keeping two percent of our Gross Domestic Product. But many different economists can see this situation differently. Activists can flip the cost and
The first model we will look at is the cost benefit analysis economists use in order to weigh our options on climate change. Cost benefit analysis allows us to compare the cost of emitting greenhouse gas with the benefit of emitting greenhouse gases, which can be to create more power plants to be able to create energy. For example, “according to most conventional calculations, one would need to sacrifice around 2% of the global annual GDP to make a significant difference in the control of emission” (Padilla 526). Many economists have used these numbers to argue that emissions control can threaten economic development. However, this means that the cost of policies trying to reverse climate change amounts to only a couple of years delay in achieving very impressive growth in per capita income levels. Although this is a valid argument, economists tend to forget the effects that greenhouse gas emission has on the environment. In the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia we are explained that “If global warming increases by more than two degrees Celsius, a situation that the “Copenhagen Accord” could lead to, there is a fifty percent probability that the damages caused to our Mother Earth will be completely irreversible” (Worlds 1). What this entails is that twenty to thirty percent of species will become endangered on Earth and large portions of forests will be affected by droughts. This is only one of the many examples of a cost-benefit analysis that have to do with climate change. The cost is the destruction of the Earth, and the benefit is keeping two percent of our Gross Domestic Product. But many different economists can see this situation differently. Activists can flip the cost and