Every Year of Delaying Legislation on Climate Change Adds $500 Billion a Year Says IEA

November 13th, 2009 by Susan Kraemer

The normally conservative International Energy Agency is now saying that we must act faster to prevent climate change. Not only to prevent catastrophe, but also because the longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to achieve the greater and greater cuts that are necessary to keep worldwide temperature rise to 2 degrees Centigrade or a 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit global average.

2 C is the least we can realistically hope and aim for now. This would be less disastrous than the 4 C or the completely catastrophic 6 C (10.8 F) average worldwide temperature rise we would headed for under a business-as-usual continuation of current overall trends in carbon emissions.

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Faith Birol, the IEA Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency said that the world must speed up the reduction in fossil energy use and make a transition faster to clean renewable energy, not only because because of climate change but because of growing problems within our energy system and possible implications for the global economy.

A whistleblower from within the IEA already revealed this week that oil reserves figures had been inflated for years in response to pressure from the US.

Now it seems a new spirit of truth telling has arrived at the normally conservative IEA.

The agency has publicly estimated that to keep us within sight of a global average temperature rise of 2 C it will take $10 trillion in investment in renewable energy from now till 2030.

Every year of delay before switching to a 2 C emissions goal adds another $500 billion to that $10 trillion total global investment cost, the IEA study finds. In other words, the longer we put off a serious switch to renewable energy and efficiency, in the form of tough legislation; the more expensive it will be to fund the change.

The study does not include any calculation for the increasing cost of adaptation, based on whether earlier or later action is taken.

Image: Flikr user Katarina

Source: World Energy Outlook via Greentech

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Tags: $500 billion a year, IEA, World Energy Outlook

About the Author

Susan Kraemer writes at CleanTechnica, CSP-Today, PV-Insider , SmartGridUpdate, and GreenProphet. She has also been published at Ecoseed, NRDC OnEarth, MatterNetwork, Celsius, EnergyNow, and Scientific American. As a former serial entrepreneur in product design, Susan brings an innovator's perspective on inventing a carbon-constrained civilization: If necessity is the mother of invention, solving climate change is the mother of all necessities! As a lover of history and sci-fi, she enjoys chronicling the strange future we are creating in these interesting times. Follow Susan on Twitter @dotcommodity.

Susan Kraemer

Dan, here is just one of these for example – the NASA data (easy graphs) on temperature records

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Susan Kraemer

Dan, here is just one of these for example – the NASA data (easy graphs) on temperature records

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Susan Kraemer

Dan, here is just one of these for example – the NASA data (easy graphs) on temperature records

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Susan Kraemer

Dan,the data is in.

Virtually every government has long since allowed thousands of the major national scientific bodies in every country to publish the actual facts on serious climate change.

The IPPC reports are the total sum of all those figures from actual peer-reviewed (ie not your website) sources published in science journals; science and data from hundreds of thousands of scientists, that every government has agreed is the true situation – even the fossil-dependent economies like the Saudis.

Scientists themselves say that the IPPC reports are by now seriously UNDERSTATING the facts, because of that need for government consensus.

In sum, these have revealed a warming world.

It is really irresponsible to keep pushing your denierism around the web where it only delays political action by preying on the uneducated to support politicians who are simply funded by polluters to prevent action that we have a moral responsibility to take.
Susan Kraemer

Dan,the data is in.

Virtually every government has long since allowed thousands of the major national scientific bodies in every country to publish the actual facts on serious climate change.

The IPPC reports are the total sum of all those figures from actual peer-reviewed (ie not your website) sources published in science journals; science and data from hundreds of thousands of scientists, that every government has agreed is the true situation – even the fossil-dependent economies like the Saudis.

Scientists themselves say that the IPPC reports are by now seriously UNDERSTATING the facts, because of that need for government consensus.

In sum, these have revealed a warming world.

It is really irresponsible to keep pushing your denierism around the web where it only delays political action by preying on the uneducated to support politicians who are simply funded by polluters to prevent action that we have a moral responsibility to take.
Susan Kraemer

Dan,the data is in.

Virtually every government has long since allowed thousands of the major national scientific bodies in every country to publish the actual facts on serious climate change.

The IPPC reports are the total sum of all those figures from actual peer-reviewed (ie not your website) sources published in science journals; science and data from hundreds of thousands of scientists, that every government has agreed is the true situation – even the fossil-dependent economies like the Saudis.

Scientists themselves say that the IPPC reports are by now seriously UNDERSTATING the facts, because of that need for government consensus.

In sum, these have revealed a warming world.

It is really irresponsible to keep pushing your denierism around the web where it only delays political action by preying on the uneducated to support politicians who are simply funded by polluters to prevent action that we have a moral responsibility to take.
http://www.princetoncryo.com nancy @ Liquid Nitrogen

The picture is very clear, isn’t it. People have to act now and fast, cause a further delay in cutting emissions can spell disaster for the whole world. The transition from fossil fuels to environment friendly technology is still in nascent stage but picking up slowly yet steadily. The world bodies need to push more for reforms, though not an easy task at all. Hope to see more things coming up to reduce global temperatures.
http://www.princetoncryo.com nancy @ Liquid Nitrogen

The picture is very clear, isn’t it. People have to act now and fast, cause a further delay in cutting emissions can spell disaster for the whole world. The transition from fossil fuels to environment friendly technology is still in nascent stage but picking up slowly yet steadily. The world bodies need to push more for reforms, though not an easy task at all. Hope to see more things coming up to reduce global temperatures.
Dan Pangburn

It is a mistake to believe that human activity has any significant influence on climate. All of the average global temperatures for the entire 20th century and on into the 21st century are readily calculated with no consideration whatsoever needed of changes to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas.

Data sources, a graph that overlays the measured and calculated temperatures from 1880 to 2008 and a detailed description of the method are in a new paper at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true .

This research shows that there is no significant Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) (and therefore no human caused climate change) from added atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other added greenhouse gas.
Dan Pangburn

It is a mistake to believe that human activity has any significant influence on climate. All of the average global temperatures for the entire 20th century and on into the 21st century are readily calculated with no consideration whatsoever needed of changes to the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gas.

Data sources, a graph that overlays the measured and calculated temperatures from 1880 to 2008 and a detailed description of the method are in a new paper at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true .

This research shows that there is no significant Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) (and therefore no human caused climate change) from added atmospheric carbon dioxide or any other added greenhouse gas.
Joe L. Ogan

Please examine this.
Joe L. Ogan

Please examine this.
Joe L. Ogan

Please examine this.