By Jo Nova
The more CO2 we emit, the less we spend on global weather disasters
Fully half of all human emissions of CO2 ever, have been emitted since 1990. This super-molecule was supposed to cause stronger cyclones, nastier storms, more droughts, floods, sea level surges, blizzards, and fires. We were going to save a fortune by installing solar panels and windmills to reduce CO2 and slow the storms. Instead, we make more CO2 than ever, and 34 years of data suggests that the more we make the less we have to spend on flattened or flooded homes.
Munich Re says the world has experienced $298 billion dollars of catastrophic disaster losses due to weather events in 2024. This sounds terrible in terms of mindless “big numbers” , but Roger Pielke Jnr points out that these losses are shrinking in terms of the size of the global economy.
And they are nothing compared to the size of the dead end “transition” spending. Catastrophic weather losses in 2024 “were about 0.26% of global GDP.” We are rebuilding our entire energy system, supposedly to reduce the damage caused by climate change which that hurts one quarter of one percent of our global economy.
The more CO2 we emit, the less we spend on global weather disasters.
For what it’s worth, Pielke notes that “Global Catastrophe Losses” turns out to be in large part due to US Hurricane losses. We can argue the toss about better ways to measure weather related costs, but we can’t argue that the media spins relentlessly one sided lies about the cost of “climate change”.
If it suited their narrative they could just as easily say “burn oil” and protect us from floods and storms. Or even more easily, since it is true — the rich world survives fires, floods, droughts and storms so much better than the poor world and fossil fuels are unarguably essential to make the concrete, the fertilizer, the planes, and the fuel to power satellites and mobile phones, ambulances and fire trucks.
Fossil fuels made us rich and keep us safe.
REFERENCES
Pielke, Jr. R. (2019). Tracking progress on the economic costs of disasters under the indicators of the sustainable development goals. Environmental Hazards, 18(1), 1-6.
DATA
56% of all human emissions have occurred in the period from 1990-2024.
Cumulative human emissions of CO2 1990 – 2024 (OWID)
1990: 808.9 billion tons
2023: 1,800 billion tons
2024: (Assume same as 2023 = 1,850 billion tons)
Percentage of human emissions from 1990 – 2024 = 56%
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