$266 Trillion in Climate Spending Is a No-Brainer
Without the investment, the alternative is $2.3 quadrillion in accumulated damage by the end of the century.
It’s going to cost a lot to get this in check.
Photographer: Ethan Swope/Bloomberg
Humanity largely agrees climate change is an existential threat to civilization. You can bet global leaders will harrumph as much again at the big United Nations climate confab in Dubai this winter. At the same time, these leaders also lavish roughly four times more on the fossil fuels heating the planet than they spend fighting the existential threat. Maybe our priorities are just a bit skewed?
Global investment in climate-related projects averaged nearly $1.3 trillion a year in 2021 and 2022, the nonprofit advisory group Climate Policy Initiative estimated recently, almost double the rate of such spending in 2019 and 2020.1Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of the happy takeaways from CPI’s report. (Full disclosure: CPI is partially funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies.)