A new White House report released Tuesday warns that delaying environmental action would be costly and argues that swift action serves as “climate insurance” to mitigate the “most severe and irreversible potential consequences of climate change.”
The report, titled “A Cost Of Delaying Action To Stem Climate Change,” comes in the wake of the Obama administration’s decision to bypass Congress and propose new rules on coal-fired power plants aimed at slashing carbon pollution by 30 percent by 2030.
Citing the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, the report lists economic consequences of putting off action.
“Impacts include decreased agricultural production; coastal flooding, erosion, and submergence; increases in heat-related illness and other stresses due to extreme weather events; reduction in water availability and quality; displacement of people and increased risk of violent conflict; and species extinction andbiodiversity loss,” it reads. “Although these impacts vary by region, and some impacts are not well-understood, evidence of these impacts has grown in recent years.”
The report claims that the rule on power plant emissions would “generate large positive net benefits, which EPA estimates to be in the range of $27-50 billion annually in 2020 and $49-84 billion in 2030” — including health benefits from cutting harmful emissions.
The president’s action is fiercely opposed by congressional Republicans, most of whom doubt or deny the scientific consensus that human activities are significantly exacerbating global climate change.
Read the report below: