Why Mainstream Climate Policies Are a Bad Deal

Nordhaus finds that Al Gore’s package of climate policies reduces the costs of global warming to $10 trillion, but at a cost of $34 trillion. Thus the world is left $44 trillion worse off at the end of the 21st century, which is double the cost of doing nothing. The Stern figures are similar: Sir Nicholas’s package would reduce global-warming damage to $9 trillion, at a cost of $27 trillion, for a total cost to the world of $36 trillion — 50-percent more expensive than doing nothing about global warming.