False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet

by Bjørn Lomborg

In the study’s most extreme scenario (not shown in figure 1.2), 350 million people could get flooded every year by 2100, with costs reaching beyond $100 trillion, or 11 percent of global GDP. This is where Wallace-Wells got his high-end, terrifyingly large figure: the worst-case outcome of the worst-case, no-adaptation scenario. But, of course, we will adapt. As the authors of the paper put it: “Damages of this magnitude are very unlikely to be tolerated by society and adaptation will be widespread.” With realistic projections of adaptation, the number of people flooded will drop dramatically, to about fifteen thousand per year by the end of the century. Yes, dike costs will increase to $48 billion, and flood damage costs will also increase to $38 billion. But the total cost to the economy will actually decline, from 0.05 percent of GDP to 0.008 percent. And a 99.6 percent reduction in flood victims will be an undeniable victory.