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

by Bjørn Lomborg

New Zealand is a fascinating case study because, to its credit, Ardern’s government actually asked its leading economic authority to estimate the cost of her promise. Thus, we have what is likely the only official, academically credible estimate of what it will cost to achieve carbon neutrality. This research, undertaken by the leading independent economic think tank in New Zealand, shows that just getting halfway to the target—cutting 50 percent of New Zealand’s emissions by 2050—would cost at least $19 billion annually by 2050. For a small country with a population similar to that of the Republic of Ireland or the state of South Carolina, that’s a big deal, about what the government spends now on its entire education and health care system.22 And it is only the cheapest cost of getting halfway to Ardern’s target. Getting all the way will likely amount to more than $61 billion annually, or 16 percent of GDP by 2050. That is more than New Zealand today spends on social security, welfare, health, education, police, courts, defense, environment, and every other part of government combined.