Thread: Economics of climate change action

Discuss the economics relating to action &/or inaction on the climate change threat. Some things to consider are;

1. Will a internationally coordinated carbon pricing mechanism encourage action, or are there better alternatives

2. Vested interests in climate change denial

3. The effect of pricing mechanisms on cost of living, and resulting peak in climate change denial

4. Post climate change economic effects on domestic and international markets

Economic effects need to be considered carefully. Germany seems to have rushed into renewables without a plan. Now they have to run inefficient coal plants to supply the base load and actually increased their CO2 emissions in 2012.
High Costs and Errors of German Transition to Renewable Energy - SPIEGEL ONLINE

German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energypolicy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and one of the country's most important future-oriented projects is acutely at risk.

This is one of the most curious developments in the story of German energy reform. The country's most heavily polluting plants are now also its most profitable: old and irrelevant brown coal power stations. Many of the plants are now running at full capacity.
This leaves a dirty stain on Germany's environmental statistics. While the amount of electricity from renewable energy rose by 10.2 percent in 2012, the first year of the new energy policy, the amount of electricity generated in hard coal and brown coal plants also increased by 5 percent each. As a result, German CO2 emissions actually increased by 2 percent in 2012. Environment Minister Altmaier was clearly upset, saying: "This development cannot become a tendency."

It seems the world needs to decide that storing nuclear waste long term is better than world wide crop failures.

It's an obvious choice.

It's just that people keep comparing nuclear power against some make believe perfect alternative that doesn't exist, and probably never will nor can exist. That one is tough to compete against.