Global warming updates; New economic loss estimate; US policy if DJT is re-elected

Science Daily reports: 

Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% until 2050 due to climate change, a new study finds. These damages are six times larger than the mitigation costs needed to limit global warming to two degrees. Based on empirical data from more than 1,600 regions worldwide over the past 40 years, scientists assessed future impacts of changing climatic conditions on economic growth and their persistence.

"Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected. These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labour productivity or infrastructure," says PIK scientist and first author of the study Maximilian Kotz. Overall, global annual damages are estimated to be at 38 trillion dollars, with a likely range of 19-59 trillion dollars in 2050. These damages mainly result from rising temperatures but also from changes in rainfall and temperature variability. Accounting for other weather extremes such as storms or wildfires could further raise them.

"Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly-developed ones such as Germany, France and the United States," says PIK scientist Leonie Wenz who led the study.  

To date, global projections of economic damages caused by climate change typically focus on national impacts from average annual temperatures over long-time horizons. By including the latest empirical findings from climate impacts on economic growth in more than 1,600 subnational regions worldwide over the past 40 years and by focusing on the next 26 years, the researchers were able to project sub-national damages from temperature and rainfall changes in great detail across time and space all the while reducing the large uncertainties associated with long-term projections.

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The NYT reports (not paywalled) about what DJT plans to do if he gets re-elected:

Five Major Climate Policies Trump Would Probably Reverse if Elected

He has called for increased oil production and said that electric vehicles will result in an ‘assassination’ of jobs

Former President Donald J. Trump has vowed to “cancel” President Biden’s policies for cutting pollution from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, “terminate” efforts to encourage electric vehicles, and “develop the liquid gold that is right under our feet” by promoting oil and gas.

When he was president, Mr. Trump reversed more than 100 environmental protections put in place by the Obama administration. Mr. Biden has in turn reversed much of Mr. Trump’s agenda.

But climate advocates argue a second Trump term would be far more damaging than his first, because the window to keep rising global temperatures to relatively safe levels is rapidly closing.

“It would become an all-out assault on any possible progress on climate change,” said Pete Maysmith, the senior vice president of campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group.

Senior Republicans don’t necessarily disagree. Michael McKenna, who worked in the Trump White House and is supporting Mr. Trump’s bid for a second term, said the approach to climate change would likely be one of “indifference.”

“I doubt very seriously we’re going to spend any time working on it,” Mr. McKenna said. To the contrary, he said, the Biden administration’s climate regulations would be “in trouble.”  

Mr. Trump’s likely policies would add four billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, according to a study by Carbon Brief, a climate analysis site.

Mr. McKenna needs to get his dark free speech points of falsehood straight. The radical right Republican climate agenda cannot be called one of “indifference” if the Biden administration’s climate regulations would be “in trouble.” One could call that an aggressive, pro-global warming climate agenda.

Pro-global warming Republicans plan to drop regulations on (i) coal and gas power plants, (ii) gut auto emissions standards, (iii) gut as much of Biden's Inflation Reduction Act as possible, killing as many solar, wind and electric car incentives as possible, (iv) incentivize unrestricted oil and gas drilling, and (v) walking away from international climate agreements to try to reduce global warming.

That is definitely not a climate agenda of indifference.