Implementing net zero will depress the global economy more than the atmospheric warming that the campaign against carbon dioxide emissions is supposed to prevent, according to a comparison of research by recognized experts. In other words, abandoning efforts to eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil fuels likely would make virtually everybody richer.

The comparison is presented in a short 12-minute video titled “How human disruptions impact GDP” by Dr. Lars Schernikau, an energy economist, commodity trader, and author of The Unpopular Truth… about Electricity and the Future of Energy.

Dr. Schernikau reviews the cost of “human” disruptions such as from Covid or the Ukraine-Russia war with estimates of implementing net zero, which were calculated by consultants McKinsey & Company and Wood Mackenzie, and projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for atmospheric warming’s effect on GDP.

According to the data, the cost of implementing net zero would range from seven to 10 percent of GDP by 2050, while the cost of abandoning net zero would be but a fraction of that—0.5 to four percent of GDP from a temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Celsius by 2100. The difference is measured in many trillions of dollars. Moreover, the higher cost of net zero is compounded by being incurred 50 years earlier than the predicted effect of warming