• Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Climate Change Dispatch
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Climate Change Dispatch
No Result
View All Result

Global Warming Target Of 1.5°C Based On Shaky Scientific Analysis

by Robert Murphy and Ross McKitrick
July 27, 2021, 2:13 PM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
8
Share on FacebookShare on XwitterShare on Linkedin

electric car chargingThe Trudeau government’s decision to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2035 in the drive to “net-zero” emissions is part of a global policy agenda kickstarted by a 2018 “Special Report” issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The report, titled Global Warming of 1.5°C, was commissioned to study the potential benefits of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than the 2.0°C target stated in the Paris Agreement.

It’s widely but mistakenly believed that the report recommended the 1.5°C target to help prevent large net economic and social losses.

But the report stated upfront that it did not include a cost-benefit analysis and was in no position to make such a claim.

For the most part, the report simply compared the model-projected impacts of 2.0°C warming versus 1.5°C, and not surprisingly, concluded that the 2.0°C impacts would be larger.

Again, it did not show that the benefits of the policies required to achieve the 1.5°C target would be worth the costs.

So before we rush into extreme policy responses, such as banning the cars and trucks on which life in Canada depends, we need careful cost-benefit analysis.

Fortunately, these have been done in the mainstream economics literature. And in a new study published by the Fraser Institute, we show that these analyses do not support the 1.5°C target.

By coincidence, the same weekend the UN released its special report, Yale economist William Nordhaus won the Nobel Memorial Prize for his pioneering work on the economics of climate change.

Major media treated the two events as complementary, assuming Nordhaus’ work supported the 1.5°C goal.

On the contrary, his modeling projected that the “optimal” amount of global warming by the year 2100 would be 3.5°C, a full two degrees higher than the popular target.

In fact, Nordhaus’ model estimated that a 1.5°C ceiling would be so harmful to the economy that it would be better for humanity if governments did nothing at all about climate change rather than pursue such a draconian policy.

Or consider the “social cost of carbon,” which economists define as the present value in dollar terms of future damages caused by the emission of an additional metric ton of carbon dioxide.

In February of this year, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated the social cost of carbon for the year 2030 at US$62.

Yet according to the UN report, the policies required to achieve the 1.5°C goal would only be justified for a social cost of carbon in 2030 ranging from US$135 to US$5,500 per ton, costs that are two to 89 times the EPA estimate.

The special report also claimed that warming would have much larger economic impacts than had been projected in a separate IPCC report released in 2014. But it’s not that the IPCC experts changed their minds, it’s that the IPCC changed its experts.

We show that, notwithstanding the similarity of the topic and the short interval between the two reports, the UN picked a very different team of authors for the special report released in 2018.

Comparing the relevant chapter from the 2014 report (Chapter 10) with the 2018 report (Chapter 3), there’s no overlap between the coordinating lead authors, lead authors, review editors, or chapter scientists.

And among the 69 contributing authors to the special report Chapter 3, only one had also contributed to the 2014 report’s chapter on climate change impacts.

Finally, we show that the special report chose to highlight two new studies, which asserted much larger economic impacts from warming.

In doing so, the authors overlooked other contemporary studies that had confirmed the earlier IPCC consensus.

In the years since the special report was released, the two new studies have been criticized on methodological grounds while other authors have not confirmed their findings.

Although advocacy of aggressive climate change policies is often draped in the mantle of science, mainstream economists who follow the scientific literature have in fact shown that the target of limiting warming to 1.5°C will impose costs that far exceed its benefits, and that the emission reductions flowing from strict adherence to this target would be worse for the world than doing nothing at all.

Read more at Financial Post

  • Truth
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Gettr
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
Share via
  • Facebook
  • Like
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • VKontakte
  • Print
  • Email
  • Reddit
  • Buffer
  • Love This
  • Weibo
  • Pocket
  • Xing
  • Odnoklassniki
  • WhatsApp
  • Meneame
  • Blogger
  • Amazon
  • Yahoo Mail
  • Gmail
  • AOL
  • Newsvine
  • HackerNews
  • Evernote
  • MySpace
  • Mail.ru
  • Viadeo
  • Line
  • Flipboard
  • Comments
  • SMS
  • Viber
  • Telegram
  • Subscribe
  • Facebook Messenger
  • Kakao
  • LiveJournal
  • Yammer
  • Edgar
  • Fintel
  • Mix
  • Instapaper
  • Copy Link
  • Truth
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Gettr
  • Baidu
  • Mastodon
  • Threads
  • Bluesky

Join our list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.

We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously

Related Posts

Energy

Trump EPA Overturns Biden-Era Rules That Would Close Coal, Gas Plants

Jun 12, 2025
Media

Climatologist Details How NASA GISS And Climate.gov Drain Taxpayer Dollars

Jun 11, 2025
Energy

Coal Strikes Back: Trump’s Big Energy Bet Paying Off

Jun 11, 2025

Comments 8

  1. Alkè says:
    4 years ago

    Banning the use of combustion vehicles by 2035 is a strong stance on the part of the Trudeau government, with economic implications for the State and its citizens. It should be noted, however, that the problem of polluting co2 emissions has been taken seriously and given the right consideration. A more moderate line could be to incentivize, at a monetary level, the purchase of electric vehicles both at the level of public transport services and private transport, to compete as a community to protect the environment.

  2. David Lewis says:
    4 years ago

    This article makes an excellent case for doing nothing about climate change even if it were real. How ever it will be ignored just as the real science shows that extreme weather events are not increasing and the world is not on the path to disastrous warming are also ignored. The economics of impact of action on climate change and the true science have nothing to do real motivation driving climate change movement. These motivations are an excuse for new taxes and expanded government control as well as world governance. The life style of the middle class is considered to be excessive and sinful so one goal is to force a reduction there. Now we have a trillion dollar world wide renewable energy industry that will continue to fight for more money.

  3. Spurwing Plover says:
    4 years ago

    Canada needs a better person leading them then that Nit-Wit they have now running them

    • Sonnyhill says:
      4 years ago

      It seems that Trudeau is a tar baby to both the Democrats and Republicans. He has no American friends.

  4. Gumnut says:
    4 years ago

    I can believe 0.15 degrees. Fahrenheit.

    Not 1.5 degrees Celsius. Anthropogenic warming undoubtedly exists. Simply burning fossil fuels or laying bitumen will add or help trap heat. However, the burning World is bulldust.

    We should send the bulldust to India, where the poor may burn it in lieu of accessing electricity.

  5. Chaamjamal says:
    4 years ago

    The earth had warmed by more than 1.5C in interglacial warming cycles a number of times in the Holocene and also in the previous interglacial the Eemian and the planet is still here. Temperatures in the first warming cycle of the Eemian interglacial were more than 5C higher than now and that had caused the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to disintegrate but the planet is still here and so are we.
    https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/20/the-holocene-optimum-period-a-bibliography/

  6. Coeur de Lion says:
    4 years ago

    Whatever Canada does will not make the slightest difference to global warming. Indeed. CO2 levels make very little and a beneficial difference. So damage case falls.

  7. Donald Cross says:
    4 years ago

    Remember, Trudeau didn”t take real courses at University. That why he doesn’t make any logical decisions and sounds like he should be playing Macbeth or King
    Lear.

Stay Connected On Social Media

gab-logo

Donate Today

Beating back the alarmist narrative takes time and money. Please donate today to help!

Recent Posts

  • Lee ZeldinTrump EPA Overturns Biden-Era Rules That Would Close Coal, Gas Plants
    Jun 12, 2025
    Trump’s EPA scraps Biden-era rules targeting coal and gas plants, citing energy costs, grid risks, and regulatory overreach. […]
  • NASA MSU satelliteClimatologist Details How NASA GISS And Climate.gov Drain Taxpayer Dollars
    Jun 11, 2025
    Taxpayer-funded agencies like NASA GISS and NOAA are pushing climate fear to secure funding, blurring the line between science and advocacy. […]
  • coal terminal shipCoal Strikes Back: Trump’s Big Energy Bet Paying Off
    Jun 11, 2025
    Trump greenlights massive coal expansion to boost exports to the Indo-Pacific, reviving U.S. energy policy and global leverage. […]
  • Nigeria flood aftermathMedia Blame Nigerian Floods On Climate Change But Overlook Key Causes
    Jun 11, 2025
    Nigeria’s deadly floods were driven by poor urban planning and infrastructure, not climate change, despite media claims to the contrary. […]
  • electricity linesBlue State Govs Blame Grid Operator For Self-Inflicted Energy Crisis
    Jun 11, 2025
    Dem-led blue states are blaming the grid operator for sykrocking energy costs for an energy crisis that they created. […]
  • Heinz KetchupBillions Wasted: The 5 Worst Green-Energy Projects That Biden Funded
    Jun 10, 2025
    Biden admin approved billions in wasteful green spending—from EV megasites and Exxon hydrogen grants to climate-friendly ketchup upgrades. […]
  • Prudhoe Bay alaskaZeldin: Alaska’s Energy Will Power Jobs, Strength, Wealth
    Jun 10, 2025
    Alaska's vast energy resources drive U.S. dominance, jobs, and security with oil, gas, coal, and critical minerals. […]
  • solar panel installGreen Energy Firm Funded By Biden’s Billions Files For Chapter 11
    Jun 10, 2025
    Sunnova filed for bankruptcy after massive layoffs and a record DOE loan, raising new questions about federal solar energy funding. […]
  • birds wind farmMedia Blame Climate Change For Bird Die-Off, Ignore Wind And Solar Farms
    Jun 9, 2025
    Bird and butterfly populations are plummeting, but media outlets ignore wind and solar farms as possible culprits. […]
  • San Fran houses‘See You In Court’: Feds Threaten Legal Action Over California’s Pursuit Of Gas Appliance Bans
    Jun 9, 2025
    California’s U.S. attorney general warned regulators not to pass appliance rules that restrict domestic energy use, including natural gas. […]

Get Instant Email Notifications

Enter your email address to receive notifications of new posts by email either instantly or daily. Check your Junk folder for any verification emails upon subscribing.

Submit a tip

Please enter your email, so we know you're human.

Books We Like

very convenient warming

exposing great lie

Have a suggestion? Let us know! We swap out books based on your input. We participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. See here.

  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

© Portions copyright Climate Change Dispatch

Share via
  • Threads
  • gab-logo Gab
  • Mastodon
  • Buffer
  • Telegram
  • Email
  • Copy Link
  • Share Using More Networks…
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Who We Are
  • Facts Vs. Fearmongering
    • Real science vs Junk Science
      • 1100-plus Peer-Reviewed Studies
      • 97% – Myth of the Climate Change Consensus
      • Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
      • Climate change and its causes
      • Climate Science Primer
      • CO2 is not pollution
      • Deceptive Surface Temperature Records
      • Editorial: Great Global Warming Hoax
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 1
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 2
      • Rules for Climate Radicals: Part 3
      • Why CO2 Is A Minor Player In Global Climate
      • Why Politicized Science Is So Dangerous
    • Facts Not Fear
      • A Simple Question For Climate Alarmists
      • Climate Change – The Facts
      • Climate Change Fears Are Empirically Baseless
      • Global Warming 101
      • Global Warming Q&A
      • Understanding The Medieval Warm Period
      • Ocean Cycles and Climate
      • Overview of Plate Climatology Theory
      • Precautionary Principle
      • Should We Celebrate Carbon Dioxide?
      • The Skeptics Handbook
      • Weather Versus Climate
      • Why I’m a GW skeptic
      • Winning the climate debate with facts
      • Why Aliens Cause Global Warming
    • Greenhouse FAQs
      • CO2, Plants, & Industry
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • How much have temps changed?
      • Is global warming real?
      • Measuring temperature
      • Swimming in CO2?
      • Scientists urge caution?
      • Today’s warming trend
      • Variations in temperature
    • Gore’s Greatest Goofs
      • Deconstructing the Truth
      • Fact-Checking Al Gore’s Latest Predictions
      • How Gore Created The Global Warming Hoax
    • Inside Real Climate
      • Closer look at the 97% Consensus
      • GW’s Amazing Story
      • IPCC gets failing grade
      • Real Climate Exposed!
      • Truth about Real Climate
      • We’ve Been Conned
      • What is there a 97% consensus about?
    • Behind the IPCC
      • 1,000 Scientists Dissent
      • Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!
      • Climategate Inquiries
      • Climategate Inquiries 2
      • NIPCC Report Now Available
      • Understanding the Climategate Inquiries
  • Submissions
  • Contact Us

© 2025 Climate Change Dispatch