It is still unclear what the summit brought in the end.
But it is already clear that this year's edition of the spectacular global climate rescue meeting will not have been enough to drastically reduce the emission of climate-damaging emissions - as it would obviously be necessary to significantly reduce the risk of violent climate crises.
The question is: why?
When it can no longer be because of the awareness of the urgency, at least according to popular surveys.
For climate activists, the answer seems clear: There are either the lobbies of the ancient fossil fuel world, stoically inconsiderate grandmas and grandpas or other evil forces. Which is certainly not always completely wrong. However, there is also some evidence that it fails because of something else: that slightly sadomasochistic narrative that seems to have established itself in Germany - and according to which saving the climate will above all be uncomfortable and expensive for each and every one of us . This narrative also says that the more uncomfortable and expensive it gets, the faster it would go. What should somehow have a motivating effect, but is rather unsuitable as an incentive to participate according to all the rules of the human psyche; man tends to be reluctant to lose. And what moreover might turn out to be unnecessary.
More recent studies even suggest that saving the climate could even be financially attractive and inexpensive - quite apart from the fact that we would then be spared (expensive) climate catastrophes.
The fact that climate policy is still "pretty expensive" to date comes from established economists who have always preached that the central recipe for saving the world is that the price of anything that is harmful to the climate must rise as a deterrent.
Why there should be emissions trading or legally increasing CO₂ taxes - with the result, logically, that things like gasoline or heating would become more expensive for consumers.
Just like for industry, which in many cases also has to convert its production.
Which also costs money in the first place, of course.
On the other hand, climate rescue is often marked as expensive because the state has to put a lot of money into, let's say, hydrogen transport routes, electric charging stations or aids in insulating houses.
And someone has to pay for that too.
For real?
Even according to the common understanding of economics, increased CO₂ prices are a (temporary) means to an end - in other words, to ensure that lower CO₂ and thus cheaper consumption and production are achieved as soon as possible.
So it will only be more expensive in the transition period.
And there is now even a lot of evidence that even the intermittent maso trip doesn't have to be.
For LED lights, prices fell by 85 percent
As a group of British economists points out in a new study, it has almost always been drastically underestimated in the past how quickly the prices of renewable energies fell after the market launch. In the past 20 years, the cost of solar energy has fallen about six times more than current models such as those of the International Energy Agency had predicted. The same applies to offshore wind energy, which some time ago was considered too expensive - and now accounts for the largest part of decarbonization in Great Britain. Or for LED lights, the prices of which have fallen by 85 percent; this turned the most expensive technology into the cheapest. And the energy bill is now cheaper than before.
How come?
According to the experts' diagnosis, there is an outdated understanding of (expensive) innovation behind the underestimated price drops.
In reality, the accelerated spread of renewables in particular has brought rapid cost reductions - because mass production is cheaper per se, learning effects are increasingly becoming noticeable, or the increasing demand at some point encourages people to invest more money in innovation.
more on the subject
Differences, ambiguities, weak recommendations: And this is how we want to save the climate ...? Susanne Götze reports from Glasgow
Plateau in CO₂ emissions: Why the unstoppable increase in emissions has come to an endA guest contribution by Stefan Rahmstorf
Economics over high costs: "You shouldn't cap energy prices under any circumstances" An interview by David Böcking
Braking the energy transition: Why the world cannot get rid of coal
SPIEGEL climate report: The four surprisingly good news from Glasgow By Kurt Stukenberg, Deputy Head of Science
This is exactly what is likely to happen in the next few years with as yet immature technologies that are important for the climate.
For example when it comes to previously expensive electric cars;
or the steel industry, which is serious for the climate.
A group of experts from Brussels comes to similar results: According to this, there are already signs of a small revolution in the production of batteries that are still very heavy - and a decrease in prices of 60 percent by 2030. In addition, the new e-cars will soon be available would be produced even more on special platforms - and that would also reduce costs significantly: by 10 to 30 percent.
Climate savers for bargain hunters
The big turning point is already in sight. According to estimates by the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, electric cars in Europe will no longer be more expensive than cars with internal combustion engines between 2025 and 2027 - that's just over three years. By 2030, an e-car should be almost 20 percent cheaper on average before taxes than a combustion car. The cost of a car would then be even lower than here and now. In other words: the chances are even good that the new world will be cheaper for drivers than the old one. If there is also a really good rail network and someone comes up with the idea of making rail travel affordable for everyone, then one or the other could voluntarily save their own car. Climate savers for bargain hunters.
The fact that living in a climate-friendly world may not be more expensive, but cheaper, could also apply to the purchase of electricity - because renewable energies per se cost less than conventional ones in the long run. The recently published analysis by the economist Beatrice Weder di Mauro also suggests such relief effects, according to which higher CO₂ taxes in the historical case studies examined are more likely to be followed by declining inflation. Precisely because industry and consumers react to it. That also speaks against the babble of the expensive climate rescue.
As the British economists write, the much-cited higher CO₂ taxes are in any case less decisive for accelerating innovation and falling costs.
It is more important that everything is done with public investments and purchase incentives to let the markets for the new technologies grow as quickly as possible - in order to reach the phase of falling costs as quickly as possible.
This is exactly what once worked in Germany when solar energy was promoted.
In Great Britain, the deliberate expansion of offshore wind energy led to a decrease in prices of 70 percent compared to 2012 (instead of the originally expected 30 percent).
In India it was the promotion of LED lamps that led to enormous price drops for the lights.
Which also makes the second potential factor for an allegedly expensive climate rescue no longer seem so expensive: the money from the state that is necessary to create these conditions and to accelerate waves of innovation.
According to new estimates, what would be necessary in terms of public funds to set up a climate-neutral economy by 2045 will initially have a pretty good effect.
As a study by the experts from Agora Energiewende and the Mannheim economist Tom Krebs for the New Economy Forum revealed, around 460 billion euros would have to be publicly financed by 2030 alone - in order to invest in hydrogen networks and other state infrastructures;
and to financially support private investments.
Sounds enormous, but if you take a closer look, there is no reason to fall into deep cost depression.
The sum is spread over a whole decade, and economically we are not Luxembourg.
If you calculate the total for individual years, you get a little more than one percent of today's economic output that would have to be expended.
Hand on heart, that is a very good price-performance ratio for saving an entire climate.
Especially when there is some evidence that the costs will be recovered in the end: when the investments that need to be financed today are offset by correspondingly lower industrial costs and consumer prices.
According to estimates by Oxford economists, an ambitious climate policy could save 26 trillion US dollars in energy costs worldwide over the next few decades.
At the end of the day, it is all about one thing: the question of whether one or the other should now simply be pre-financed through credit - instead of relying on high CO₂ taxes in the meantime according to the standard theory. And there, too, there is no reason to panic about costs and debts. As the analysis by Agora and Tom Krebs showed, the investments that would be necessary in Germany on the way to climate neutrality by 2030 alone could also be financed in such a way that even the much too strict requirements of the debt brake would be complied with. Even without higher taxes.
All of this does not mean that saving the climate will be a sure-fire success.
Not at all.
Especially since the earth is also threatened by things like species extinction.
It will get uncomfortable here and there.
However, there is some evidence that it takes a lot less maso tendency and a depressed mood to get there.
And that it could even be cheaper than today to live in a climate-neutral world.
Especially since continuing in today's world threatens to lead to expensive disasters.
That it could be more affordable to heat an apartment or drive a car in a climate-neutral world simply sounds, shall we say, more motivating to the human brain than the current announcement that saving the climate will be very expensive for us.
