If the question sounds absurd, that’s because it is. If we fail to move to a low-carbon economy, the consequences will be dire. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists convened by the UN, we must drastically reduce our emissions in the next decade to avoid a catastrophic situation in which droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather across the globe devastate lives, destroy agriculture, lay waste to wildlife and force millions to flee.
Set against that, the costs – of £50bn a year in investment, according to the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which set out the case last month for a target of net-zero emissions by 2050, or £70bn a year, according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – of maintaining our current lifestyles and orderly existences are trivial. The UK’s economy is worth roughly £2tn a year at present, so Hammond’s estimate of a £1tn cumulative cost by 2050 amounts to less than half of one year’s GDP in three decades. [...]
He added: “If reports of the letter are correct, Hammond has not understood the urgency of the challenge and the immense costs of climate change, and has failed to understand the capabilities of the UK. The UK is in an enormously powerful position to take leadership, with its strengths in research and development, in innovation, in finance in the City, with our skills in city planning – there is enormous potential here.”
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