Thread by @martinarnsten

Here is a (google) translation of an article written by three people where two are in the Committee for the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

"Climate panic is the biggest climate threat"
March 30, 2019

The satellite image shows one of many hurricanes across Florida. How should we best meet climate change? Hope for the best but plan for the worst, the article authors think.

Every day, we hear and read that the research community agrees that continued greenhouse gas emissions lead to catastrophic climate changes that risk leading to the demise of human civilization.

We also hear that the necessary measures to stop climate change are draconian.

An effective climate policy requires tremendous sacrifices - we must fundamentally change our lifestyle, according to some stop getting children and even abolish democracy.

It is not difficult to understand that many people get climate anxiety and need therapy for this. It is a shame and unnecessary because these claims are not true.

Climate anxiety and panic we believe also reduces the possibility of sensibly managing the large but far from insurmountable problems climate change entails.

There is no doubt that the combustion of fossil fuels leads to carbon dioxide emissions that affect the balance between the influx of energy form of sunlight and outflow in the form of heat radiation.

However, there is no agreement on how great effects this will have on the Earth's climate.

The UN Climate Panel IPCCC summarizes the international research results by doubling the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere (which we are still far from) probably leading to an increase in the global average temperature range of between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees.

If the true climate sensitivity were to be in the lower part of this range, we didn't need to worry much.

We have so far increased the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere by just under 50% and can thus increase it to the same extent and still clear the 1.5 degree target.

But if climate sensitivity is in the middle or in the part of the interval, measures against climate change must be much more powerful than those promised by the countries of the world so far.

The UN Climate Panel also points out that the uncertainty regarding the economic consequences is as great or greater than that surrounding the natural science mechanisms

However, there are no research results that indicate that human civilization would fall under climate change. Such scenarios are science fiction.

The starting point is thus a great uncertainty about how big the problem of climate change is. So far, research has not succeeded in significantly reducing this uncertainty.

Therefore, waiting for more knowledge does not seem to be particularly fruitful. Instead, we must make decisions on climate policy now given this great uncertainty.

Our research group has studied the global welfare losses of two different types of policy failures.

The first is to introduce a powerful global climate policy that later turns out to be too strict. The second is not to do so much in the hope that climate change will not be so great and that their consequences are small but the latter turns out to be the opposite.

Our results are very clear - the costs of conducting too strict a climate policy that then turns out to be excessive are not large and many times smaller than those from a policy that later turns out to have underestimated the effects of climate change.

A smart climate policy is thus a cheap insurance premium against large but highly uncertain costs. We should therefore hope for the best but plan for the worst.

But, for the insurance premium to be low, climate policy must be smart.

An unpleasant climate policy can be very expensive; so expensive that many would question whether it is worth its price.

Proposals for a flight ban, global zero growth, child restraints and the elimination of democracy - driven by climate panic - are probably the biggest climate threat.

A smart climate policy is to appreciate the emissions. A carbon dioxide tax on the Swedish level or an emission trading system with a reasonably high price would most likely suffice and be the smartest way to manage the climate crisis.

More and more people realize that a price on emissions is the right way to go and yet it is not too late.

Strike, but not against climate change, but for a global carbon tax!

/FIN

Here's the original in swedish
svt.se/opinion/klimat…