What is their long time goal?
The goal of the IPCC is simply to summarise and present the latest science in each report.
The goal for everyone else is to find out (from the science the IPCC summarises) whether the reported changes are severe and important enough to be concerned or to take specific actions.
What will be the end result of all these implentations (we're talking big money!!)?
To avoid moving permanently out of the climate that has supported our agriculture and our social infrastructure. The objective used to be to avoid dangerous climate change. That option is now off the table.
The objective now must be to delay some effects while we get our disorganised act together and to take a long hard look at what infrastructure may have to be abandoned as not worth the cost of saving. (There are far too many port and coastal cities in the world for all of them to be held onto in anything like their current role and form.) And to hope that preventive and remedial action will get a quick response to bring us back from our excursion into the danger zone. If you think that this year's UK floods, US fires and floods, US and Russian crop problems are serious - just wait until we have a couple of strong El Nino years in a row. The record shattering June that the US has just lived through will be routine in about 10 to 15 years time.
As for the money question. Everything costs money - the issue is what do we spend it on.
We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering.We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix isgoing to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will berequired and the less suffering there will be.
(That's John Holdren's words. He uses this formulation often, sometimes he uses 'misery' instead of 'suffering' but the meaning is plain.)
The most important financial question is that adaptation is much, much more costly than mitigation. And suffering is generally paid in other coin, which we'd all much rather not deal with.
If you don't believe me about the higher costs of adaptation, think about roads, railways and bridges. They are built to engineering standards to withstand loads, winds, storms, floods, heat, tidal surges of varying severity. The busier the road (or bridge or railway), the more important it is so the higher the standard is set for its continuing operation. When the seas rise and the weather worsens, the more stresses these structures face, the more often they fail or get washed away or weakened. So you have to rebuild - to a higher standard. Or you have to abandon that place for that facility and build a replacement (to a higher standard) in a less vulnerable position.
Add up all the major roads, bridges and railways of the world that are within say 2 kilometres of the coast, or a kilometre either side of a river. Then add in all the sewage processing plants, power stations, port facilities, water treatment plants in the same area. Think about the economic impact of a) such a facility being out of action for a number of weeks or months, b) the cost of replacing it, c) the disruption while it is being reconstructed. Then factor in the uncertainty of never really knowing when you're going to have to take such action. If there's one thing businesses don't like, it's uncertainty. And when business lacks confidence in the immediate or long term future, that also has economic impacts. One business activity you should think about. Insurance. If the world's insurers want to stay in business, they have to deal with uncertainties - usually by raising premiums or by refusing to underwrite unacceptable risks. That has a big impact on economic activity generally.
The question isn't whether we will or whether we won't invest money. The question is what choices of investment will we make.