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Diesel trucks drive past a wind farm in California (archive image)
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Investments in climate protection are not only worthwhile financially in the long term, but also in the years to come.
A research group comes to this conclusion using the example of the USA.
Measures that lead to compliance with the two-degree target would, for example, quickly reduce air pollution - with corresponding financial relief.
In the case of the USA, healthier people and higher crop yields would lead to savings of 163 trillion dollars by 2050, write the scientists working with Drew Shindell from Duke University in North Carolina in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Measures for the two-degree target would also prevent 4.5 million premature deaths, 1.4 million hospital stays, 300 million days of lost work, 1.7 million cases of dementia and the loss of 440, according to the calculations Millions of tons of crops.
Savings exceed costs for climate protection
If combustion engines are replaced by electric motors to protect the climate and increasingly fewer fossil fuels are used to generate energy, then there are also fewer exhaust gases and the air becomes cleaner.
Shindell and colleagues argue that these advantages should be included in the cost-benefit balance.
"The monetized total benefits this century are dominated by health and are much greater than in previous analyzes due to a better understanding of the effects of heat and air pollution on human health," the researchers point out.
By 2030, the economic gain from clean air could amount to five to 25 times the cost of climate protection.
According to the calculations, the avoided damage caused by heat will exceed the costs of climate protection between 2040 and 2055.
Damage caused by higher sea levels, heavy weather events, droughts and forest fires are not even included in this.
Higher gross domestic product in Germany
For Sebastian Helgenberger from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, it is important that such economic calculations are carried out: "They make it clear that climate protection measures are also worthwhile in the short term." By underpinning the urgency to act with opportunities, more people could be motivated to actively protect the climate. Helgenberger refers to similar studies by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). As early as 2014, a UBA study found that just through ambitious climate protection, Germany's gross domestic product could be around 30 billion euros higher in 2030.
Karsten Haustein from the Helmholtz Center Hereon in Geesthacht also finds the study results important.
A main aspect is the realization that the high start-up costs of climate protection measures are more than compensated if the avoided health costs due to the reduced air pollution are included.
"As a result, the repeatedly put forward argument of an unreasonable cost burden collapses," explains Haustein.
This should look no different for Europe and Germany than the study shows for the USA.
fww / dpa
