Climate Action Cheaper Than Inaction, Central Banks Find
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- Over two million people were evacuated from climate-related emergencies in the past three weeks — 400,000 in North America and Europe from wildfires and 1.9 million in China from typhoons, the authors report.
- A network of 148 central banks, including Canada's, concluded last year that the cost of transitioning to net-zero emissions is much lower than the cost of facing increasingly severe and frequent weather events.
- Insured damages from severe weather events and wildfires exceeded $2.4 billion in Canada and $100 billion globally last year, and the authors note most climate-related losses are not insured at all.
- Canadian forest fires in 2023 emitted more greenhouse gases than all direct human activity in Canada combined, illustrating a self-reinforcing feedback loop the authors say is accelerating the crisis.
- Prime Minister Mark Carney said the prior Liberal climate plan would have been too expensive for Canadians, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre described net-zero emissions as implying net-zero growth — a framing the authors say the economic evidence contradicts.
- Canada's per capita emissions, both current and cumulative, rank among the highest on the planet, giving the country an outsized responsibility as a G7 nation to lead on mitigation, the authors argue.
Why it matters: The op-ed directly challenges the cost framing used by both Carney and Poilievre, arguing that 148 central banks, the IEA, the UN, and reinsurer Swiss Re have already concluded delay is more expensive than transition. With global insured losses at $100 billion last year, Canadian wildfire emissions exceeding human-caused emissions in 2023, and recovery periods stretching over two decades, the financial case for action keeps compounding — making the political case against climate policy harder to defend on economic grounds.
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