$3.8 Trillion: The Annual Price America Will Pay for Dilly-Dallying on Climate Change

Here’s one silly topic we can stop even discussing right now: That a tough new national climate law would devastate the US economy.

Why?

Because doing nothing to stop global warming would cost the country a helluva lot more.

Nearly $4 trillion, in fact, in today’s dollars -- each year by 2100.

That adds up to economic losses of more than 3.6 percent of US GDP under a scenario of business-as-usual emissions.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Tufts University crunched the numbers in this new report (pdf) that builds on economic models used by Sir Nicholas Stern in ‘06.

The data was released last week -- just in time to bring some reality into the debate as Lieberman-Warner hits the Senate floor and as an awful lot of stupid lies fly around about climate laws being inherently bad for the US economy.

From the study: Four global warming impacts alone -- hurricane damage, real estate losses, increased energy costs and water costs – will carry a price tag of 1.8 percent of US GDP.

That's almost $1.9 trillion annually by century’s end.

The breakdown:

• Hurricane damages: $422 billion
• Real estate losses: $360 billion
• Increased energy costs: $141 billion
• Water costs: $950 billion

Those four economic damages come with market prices.

Now, account for non-economic and catastrophic damages -- such as changes in human health, effects on wilderness areas and the fallout from climate catastrophes -- and the total shoots up to almost $4 trillion.

Far-fetched? Not all. If Congress keep trifling away its time on the climate issue, then the chances of incurring those costs become more probable, by the day.

(Also: It’s worth keeping in mind that NRDC uses the most pessimistic business-as-usual climate forecasts considered "likely" by the IPCC climate scientists.

Meaning: The researchers didn’t account for the worst possible case, so the actual global warming price tag could be much higher.)

On top of all that, the study found that on a business-as-usual path, average temps across the US will leap 12 to 13 degrees by 2100.

What a shift.

Chicago will feel like Los Angeles. New York like Las Vegas. And Miami, well, it doesn’t have a match in the US. Too hot.

In fact, it will be hotter than any major city in the world today.

Let's be clear. We never said averting climate damage would come on the cheap because it won’t. But $4 trillion a year?

Cripes. Sounds criminal.

Especially when you consider this: The DOE just announced that wind turbines could power 20% of all of America by 2030 for $43 billion. Another study claims America could generate 70% of its electricity with solar alone for $10 billion a year for 40 years.

And on, and on...

Giant carbon savings, right under the country's nose.

In sum: Kill politics-as-usual in Washington -- and the culture of global warming denial that it breeds -- and give new life to smart and brave climate policy instead.

Give it a whirl, Washington, and just about all of those trillions would be avoided.

The only question now is: what will that take?

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