The
REAP Report - WEIGHING THE COSTS
Ignorance
matters especially when it leads to bad and costly decision
making. Fear of largely imaginary problems can also divert political
energy from the real issues.
For
example: The climatic phenomenon known as El Nino was blamed
by many in 1997-98 for destroying tourism, causing allergies,
melting ski slopes, and causing the death of 22 people by dumping
snow in the state of Ohio (USA). However, a final report from
the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society shows the
facts to be quite different. While the El Nino damage did cost
an estimated $4 billion USD, the benefits were almost $19 billion
USD. In other words the benefits outweighed the costs by $15
billion dollars. These benefits came from higher winter temperatures
which saved an estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and
reduced spring floods by melting ice and snow along with fewer
cyclones/hurricanes.
Thus,
a false perception of similar risk is often far more expensive
than initiating steps to improving safety and preventing disease.
For example: Carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet
to warm. The best estimates are the temperature will rise by
two to three degrees centigrade in this century causing considerable
problems especially in the developing world. Estimates of the
cost run to approximately $5 billion USD. Getting rid of global
warming would thus on the surface appear to be a good idea.
However, the question is: Will the cure be more costly than
the ailment?
Despite
the general agreement that something drastic needs to done about
this costly problem, economic analyses clearly show it is far
more expensive to cut carbon dioxide emissions radically than
to pay the cost of adapting to the increased temperatures. Tom
Wigley one of the main authors of the reports of the UN Climate
Change Panel, has demonstrated how an expected temperature increase
of 2.1 degree Centigrade in the year 2100 would only be reduced
by the Kyoto Protocol Treaty to an increase of 1.9 degree Centigrade
instead. In simple terms, the temperature increase Planet Earth
would experience by the year 2094 if the treaty is not implemented
would be merely postponed to the year 2100. In other words,
for just six years.
The
Kyoto Protocol over which there has been so much arguing and
often violent debate does not prevent global warming. It merely
buys the world six years. But at what cost? The cost of implementing
the Kyoto Protocol for the United States alone is greater than
providing every person on earth including those of us living
here in the Cook Islands access to clean drinking water and
sanitation. Such measures would save 2 million lives a year
and prevent 500 million people from becoming seriously ill.
Which is the greater need? Which would be of greater benefit
to the people of Planet Earth?
Replacing
talk with facts is crucial if people are to make the best possible
decisions for their future. While the best environmental management
and investment are noble goals, the cost and benefit of such
action must always be weighed in order to solve real human needs
and problems. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
(Compiled
from The Economist, UN Climate Change Report, American Meteorological
Society)
Cook
Island News 05 March 2003
