The U.S. Could Cut Emissions By 80 Percent For Less Than The 2018 Federal Budget
Source: Huff Post
11/30/2018 09:57 am ET
It cost a projected $4.1 trillion to run the federal government in fiscal year 2018. Experts say it would take $1.3-$5.1 trillion to rein in emissions by mid-century.
By Chris D’Angelo
It’s no secret where the Trump administration stands on studying and combating climate change: “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said at a White House briefing last year. “We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that.”
As President Donald Trump continues to dismiss the all-but-irrefutable scientific consensus on climate change, federal reports released last week make it clear that failing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions will cost the United States far more in the long run than tackling the crisis head-on.
As part of the historic 2015 Paris climate accord, nearly 200 countries committed to helping prevent global temperatures from increasing by 2 degrees Celsius, the “magic number” scientists say would stave off the worst effects of climate change.
Overhauling U.S. energy infrastructure to reduce emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by the middle of the century ― a goal consistent with the 2-degree target ― would cost the United States between $1 trillion and $4 trillion (in 2005 U.S. dollar values) by mid-century, according to the 2018 State of the Carbon Cycle Report.
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Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/federal-budget-climate-change-carbon-cycle-report-emissions-mitigation_us_5c006a69e4b0b69ed3796e33?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
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Published on Thursday, November 29, 2018
Why the Migrant Caravan Story Is a Climate Change Story
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/29/why-migrant-caravan-story-climate-change-story
Drought, crop failure, storms, and land disputes pit the rich against the poor, and Central America is ground zero for climate change
by Todd Miller
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Most members of the human caravans are from these three “dry corridor” countries.
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, “Families and communities have already started to suffer from disasters and the consequences of climate change.” From 2008 to 2015, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reported that at least 22.5 million had been displaced per year because of climate-related-events, the equivalent of 62,000 people per day. Over this time, environmental forces uprooted more people than war. And in 2017 alone, disasters displaced 4.5 million people in the Americas.
In September, the World Food Programme essentially confirmed what Giovanni had told me earlier that summer in Sasabe. According to reporting by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the WFP said, “Poor harvests caused by drought in Central America could leave more than two million people hungry” and “climate change was creating drier conditions in the region.” In July, El Salvador declared a red alert as the drought affected 77,000 corn farmers, and Honduras reported that as much as 80 percent of its maize and bean crops were lost. The accumulated losses of these crops exceeded 694,366 acres in Guatemala and El Salvador. This summer’s devastating losses came after other recent, hard-hitting dry spells, particularly from 2014 to 2016, that had already left millions on the brink of hunger.
As climate scientist Chris Castro told me in 2017, Central America is ground zero for climate change in the Americas. Among the thousands of people caravanning north are climate refugees.
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A child sits in an area affected by a drought in the southern outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in 2016. In the same area this September, the Honduran government declared a state of emergency because of drought as 290 municipalities are on the verge of running out of food. (Photo by Orlando Sierra/Stringer/Getty Images)
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