.. say the crazy green hippies of consultancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers. A study by John Hawksworth, head of macroeconomics of PWC, shows that Carbondioxide emissions can be pushed back under todays level for a reasonable price.
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While "staying the cause" would more than double the output of CO2 over the next 50 years with catastrophic results, an adoption of several strategies could easily avoid the dangers of glabal warming.
The biggest reduction would come from energy savings being implemented, beyond the historic trend, through better isolation of houses and more economic use of fuels in transport. The second reduction step comes through less fossile fuel use for electricity generation, i.e adoption of more nuclear and/or alternative energy production methods. A third step could be achieved by capturing and storing CO2. The study itself names many more adoptable policies with smaller effects, like reforestation.
The big steps will have to be taken first by the G7 countries. Only they have the money and the means to do so. Developing countries will actually increase their output of CO2 until they have the infrastructure and basic economic level that allows the technologies and policy instruments to "trickle down".
The price to implement the policies is estimated to be one trillion US$ spread over some 30 years. That’s two years of the Pentagon’s budget, or as much as West Germany has payed to aquire East Germany. Hawksworth also points to other studies that even predict positive economic effects of adopting the strategies, i.e. no costs at all.
So what are we waiting for?