The cost of climate change

Apparently (and I didn't realise this) the Stern report used a surprisingly low discount rate (an internal interest rate in investment decisions) which may have made the result seem rather cheap.

Increasing the discount rate (the rate at which you can borrow money) increases the price of the investments - the value of the benefits will remain the same.

It appears that an appendix to the governments Climate Change Bill has re-done this work, and come up with a different answer.

This different answer suggests that the bill will cost anywhere up to £205 000 000 000. Of course this will bring benefits - judged to be £110 000 000 000 (by 2050 I guess).

That's one hell of a lot of cash.

Two obvious questions:
1) How do you put a financial value on the Greenland icecap, blue whales and mountain glaciers. I suspect no price has been given - rather this will only be from a UK perspective, and the UK doesn't have these things.
2) What if the UK is alone in reducing emissions? Whilst unlikely we'd still loose the Greenland ice cap, blue whales and mountain glaciers - oh, and half of our economy as everyone fled abroad where business didn't have to pay for the £205 billion.

This is why I favour carbon capture and storage, because it is a technology which can be pushed abroad (and hey, maybe even sold abroad!!!) making it less likely that the UK will act alone. My full argument on UK global leadership is online.