C L I M A T E
As the climAte crisis worsens, too mAny
people are swinging from denial straight to de-
spair. A few years ago, it was common to hear peo-
ple deny climate change, downplay the enormous-
ness of the threat, or argue that it is far too soon to
worry about it. Now many people say it’s too late.
The apocalypse is coming, and there is nothing we
can do to prevent it.
Despair is as dangerous as denial. And it is
equally false. Humanity has enormous resources
under its command, and by applying them wisely,
we can still prevent ecological cataclysm. But ex-
actly how much would it cost to stop the apoc-
alypse? If humankind wanted to prevent cata-
strophic climate change, how big a check would
we have to write?
Naturally enough, no one knows for sure. My
team and I have spent weeks poring over various
reports and academic papers, living in a cloud of
numbers. But while the models behind the num-
bers are dizzyingly complex, the bottom line should
cheer us up. According to the International En-
ergy Agency, achieving a net-zero carbon econ-
omy would require us to spend just 2% of annual
global GDP over what we already do on our en-
ergy system. In a recent poll of climate economists
conducted by Reuters, most agreed that getting to
net zero would cost only 2% to 3% of annual global
GDP. Other estimates put the cost of decarbonizing
the economy a bit lower or a bit higher, but they
are all in the low single digits of annual global GDP.
These numbers echo the assessment of the Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change, which in
its landmark 2018 report stated that in order to
limit climate change to 1.5°C, annual investmentsin clean energy needed to increase to around 3%
of global GDP. Since humankind already spends
about 1% of annual global GDP on clean energy,
we just need an extra 2% slice of the pie!
The above calculations focus on the cost of
transforming the energy and transportation sec-
tors, which are by far the most important. How-
ever, there are other sources of emissions as well,
like land use, forestry and agriculture. You know,
those infamous cow farts. The good news is that
a lot of these emissions can be cut on the cheap
through behavioral changes such as reducing
meat and dairy consumption and relying more
on a plant-based diet. It doesn’t cost anything
to eat more veggies, and it can help you (and the
rain forests) live longer.THE 2%
SOLUTION
TO CLIMATE
CHANGE
Meaningful progress
takes only a small
slice of global GDPBy Yuval Noah HarariILLUSTRATION BY ALDO CRUSHER FOR TIME