President Obama is trying to gen up public fear about the cost to the economy if global temperatures continue to rise. The real public fear should be over how much his climate change fight has already cost the U.S. economy—with very little to show for it but huge piles of debt.
The White House just released a paper claiming:
Based on a leading aggregate damage estimate in the climate economics literature, a delay that results in warming of 3° Celsius above preindustrial levels, instead of 2°, could increase economic damages by approximately 0.9 percent of global output. To put this percentage in perspective, 0.9 percent of estimated 2014 U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is approximately $150 billion.
So according to the White House, if global temperatures were to rise 1° Celsius above current predictions, that could have a $150 billion negative impact on the economy. But Obama’s climate-change policies have already had a huge negative impact on the economy.
Last September the Congressional Research Service released its “Federal Climate Change Funding from FY2008 to FY2014.” Beginning in 2009, and including the president’s requested budget for 2014, we’re looking at a total of $81.7 billion for his numerous climate change initiatives—well over half the amount of his estimated damage to the economy if temperatures were to rise higher than some climate models predict. And he has two more years to go.
But at least for that much money we got some of his promised green jobs, right?
The Institute for Energy Research published an analysis of the Department of Energy’s green energy loan guarantee projects in May of last year—part of the president’s total green energy spending. IER found that the government had spent $26 billion and had managed to create 2,298 jobs, or about $11.45 million per job created.
But at least those companies were good “investments,” right? You can see for yourself on the Department of Energy’s website how many of those taxpayer-funded projects are no longer viable.
Well, did we at least get some reduction in carbon emissions for all that money? The U.S. has experienced a small reduction in CO2 emission rates, starting in 2008—before Obama became president. But those reductions were due to an economic recession, which led to reduced driving, and importantly, electricity-generating plants increasingly switching to cleaner-burning natural gas. Obama’s green-energy spending bonanza has had virtually no impact on carbon emission rates.
Of course, Obama’s warning of a $150 billion economic hit—which is certainly inflated, just like nearly all of the numbers coming out of the White House—is only if global temperatures rise higher than 2° Celsius. But the there is no evidence that’s happening.
After a gradual rise in the 1980s and ‘90s, temperatures leveled off about 17 years ago, and there has been little or no global warming since, forcing the New York Times to wonder, “What to Make of the Warming Plateau.” And that temperature stagnation has come even in the midst of rising levels of carbon dioxide.
To sum up, Obama will continue to spend significantly more than the $82 billion he’s already squandered in the hope of avoiding a $150 billion economic hit that will likely never happen anyway.
And if temperatures don’t rise, as many scientists predict, Obama will likely use that to say his big-spending policies worked.