Item — HN Reader

They eat the cost. Most countries are not as poor as they used to be 30 years ago, and can afford a $2 billion or even $10 billion climate disaster hit.

Back in VN, the cyclone seasons now causes several billion dollars of damage a year yet they still trudge on. Same with the Philippines, China, India, and others.

> given enough climate events, "decarbonization" will become a "national security" topic

They already are, but most large states in Asia also have ongoing disputes with China that have almost gone hot multiple times over the past decade.

2 comments

The climate disaster costs are going to be so so much bigger than that unless our rates change. It’s easy to look at our $30000B gdp, even project that to 100k B into the future, and say “well we will eat the 2-10B costs”.

There is no number for “we don’t have a source of soy anymore” or “Florida coastlines have moved 50 miles inland” or “the Ogallala is empty”. We could guess, and we would be guessing some really really big numbers that don’t sound very eatable.

The big easy ones are the weather disasters. Katrina did 200b in damage (inflation adjusted). If we jump up to a disaster like that yearly, 1000b every 5 years is…. A serious problem for a 30,000B economy. And that’s JUST hurricanes.

I agree, but no one is going to change their track and this is something that neither the EU-27 nor the US nor anyone else has power over now.

And it's not like this wasn't known - we were literally modeling this kind of a standoff at the Belfer Center almost 15 years ago.

What I am trying to say is arguing from a moralistic or humanity standpoint doesn't help because that's not how decisionmakers think, and that requires accepting agency across multiple players.

We need to accept we are fucked, and based on the cards we have in our hand understand what will happen next.

Can they afford wet bulb events that kill outdoor laborers? Crop failures and mass starvation?

People will not die to starve in place. They will move. Can their neighbors afford to deal with that ? And their neighbors's neighbors ?

Our "sovereign borders defended by true patriots making whatever great again" are going to be so cute... (Or so ugly if they decide to actually to deal with it XXth-century-style...)

There will definitely be climate wars. They might not call it that, they'll blame an "immigration crisis", and slaughter a bunch of people trying to survive catastrophic climate change by migrating to somewhere survivable.