https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2018/MurphyNordhaus.html
This is an old post about ways to estimate the economic impact of climate change and the ways it can fought. It's mostly about trying to find the 'price of carbon dioxide' that is optimal, that is, to internalize the externalities and make everyone pay it to the government (go figure).
The interesting part here is that one of the most respected (and used) models sees the difference between doing nothing at all and enacting the optimal tax over the next hundred years at around 3 trillion dollar, which is also about the size of the market capitalization of the largest companies in the world (apple, nvidia, msft).
I was reminded of this when I saw the price of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: At least according to the following link, it's in the same ballpark at around 4 to 6 trillion dollars.
No "conclusion" here, but I find it interesting to get a perspective on these things.
i think you mightve misread something? or am i misreading something? you arent specific enough in your wording for me to comprehend so ill leave this question as an exercise for the reader.
the 3 trillion in the paper for the "optimal tax" is the 'amount of money SAVED from (hidden) costs, when compared to the baseline amount of , costs and damages of climate change if no tax is applied". The total sum of damages and costs goes from 22.59tri(2005$) to 19.52tri(2005$), from "do nothing" vs "do optimal tax". If the goal is to avoid predictable economic damage of the future, then the optimal tax is good. (ofc we dont know if it would be good because its a hyper-simplified model. but it gives some ballpark value estimates).
It might first be read as "optimal tax might cost 3 trillion to enact" but its actually the inversion. it would summa summarum at SOME MEASURING POINT OF ECONOMICS result in 3trillion remaining unspent, aka "saved". It does not SAY the actual cost of the optimal tax, as far as i can read out, of how much of the 19.52trillion$ is tax costs. It's important to note, that the "Optimal carbon tax", would limit global mean temp warning from +4.0C to +3.5C by the year 2100.
now, the optimal tax is also compared against various "Goals", like the UN goal of limiting temp change to 1.5C. To succeed in the UN's goal, it would not save 3tri$, but rather, cost an extra ~15tri$.
Depending on who to ask (according to the paper), the UN's goal would only be successful with a carbon tax, somewhere ranging between 135$ to 5500$ per ton of CO2. ofc, the UN's latest report would set this to 5500$per ton of CO2 in 2030, which, translates directly to ~48$ of carbon tax per gallon of gasoline. (lol,lmao, xd even). the Obama administration estimated needed carbon tax rate was at 50$ per ton, or ~100 times less than the latest UN report (lmfao).
and i love the conclusion, and the conclusion is absolutely correct:
paraphrased to be short: "Even with the outrageously simplified and fine-detail ignoring Nordhaus method, that is tilted towards supporting the UN's goal, the UN's special report's data clearly states against itself, that UN's climate target is guaranteed to be impossible to ever achieve through maths. Yet we continue to try according to the same formula"
and to leave the paper, god i FUCKING HATE CARBON TAX, or well, specifically the subconcept of "Carbon Credits", its the wildest and biggest and definitely an evil scam from top to bottom god i HATE that shit, its so obviously bad from the get go but there's no way to stop carbon credits from working like they do. you cant fucking excel sheet a coal plant away from your national air pollution, thats NOT HOW IT WORKS
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA its an inherent failure of policy persons and excel scientists making a apples to mangoes conversion and going "yeah, 1 apple - 1 mango = 0 fruit" type shit in multiple layers. this isnt even going into the blackest of black scams that carbon credits have systematically abused. and too much of the time, they just start throwing veggies, and meat, and all that shit into the conversion and pretending its all the same dollar $. the distinctions between products (haha produce) and value is obfuscated enough to make it all seem like the same thing. Pretty much all forestry related actions are either way-fucking overestimated, and some are even opposite estimated for carbon credits. Same for quarrying and wetlands and swamps. real headache