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I read through the report from the IWG. It is devoid of science. In fact the National Science Foundation is missing from the IWG! The basic problem with the document is that it seeks to estimate costs of added CO2 but ignores benefits. The benefits are well known and documented scientifically. The largest probably is the improvement in …
I read through the report from the IWG. It is devoid of science. In fact the National Science Foundation is missing from the IWG!
The basic problem with the document is that it seeks to estimate costs of added CO2 but ignores benefits. The benefits are well known and documented scientifically. The largest probably is the improvement in agriculture that is due to the higher CO2 in the air. There are thousands of studies of the impact of higher CO2 on plant quality and quantity (usually by Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiments). For nearly all major crops adding 300 ppm to the air gives a 30 to 50% increase in productivity for the same amount of seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs. Using just a 10% increase for the 140 ppm added to the air in the last 200 years and based on worldwide commercial agricultural production of ~$8 trillion in 2018, this gives a benefit of around $1 trillion. With emissions in 2019 of 38 billion tons, this is a benefit of about $25/ton of CO2.
Other benefits include reduction of arid (desert) areas due to the added CO2 allowing plants to live with less water in the ground. This was estimated in 205 to have decreased the arid areas by about 15% over the 40 year period for which accurate satellite images are available.
Also, all life on earth lives better with a less cold environment. There are far more deaths in the coldest months of the year than in the warmest months. Many studies have shown this.
A. Gasparrini, et al., “Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study”, The Lancet (2015) DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0 http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2962114-0.pdf
D. Onozuka and A. Hagihara, “Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest risk attributable to temperature in Japan”, Scientific Reports (2017), 7:39538 DOI: 10.1038/srep39538. http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39538
A final problem with the report is that assumes that a ton of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today will have any impact far in the future. It ignores the scientific fact that CO2 leaves the atmosphere, too. Plants (and phytoplankton in the oceans) absorb large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. Only a small portion of the emitted CO2 remains in the air for decades, especially now that plants are growing more rapidly and thus absorbing more CO2.
Two corrections:
"Using just a 10% increase " I meant "Using just a 15% increase "
"This was estimated in 205" I meant "This was estimated in 2015"