Robert Pollin and Noam Chomsky Discuss IPCC Report

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Robert Pollin, Distinguished Professor of Economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environmental and Social Justice at the University of Arizona, recently discussed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) newly released climate report in an interview with Truthout. The findings of the report are grim, anticipating that every region of the world will experience increases in climate-related hazards, including risks to human health, ecosystems, and economies, in the years to come. 

When asked about the IPCC's recommendation that CO2 emissions be reduced to net zero by 2050 is a realistic goal, Pollin notes, "Still, purely as an analytic, economic and policy challenge... it is entirely realistic to allow that global CO2 emissions can be driven to net zero by 2050. By my higher-end estimate, it will require an average level of investment spending throughout the global economy of about 2.5 percent of global GDP per year to build a global clean-energy infrastructure to supplant our existing fossil-fuel dominant infrastructure. That translates into about $2 trillion in today’s global economy, and an average of about $4.5 trillion per year between now and 2050. This is obviously a lot of money. But, as a share of annual GDP, it is about one-tenth of what the U.S. and other high-income countries spent to prevent an economic collapse during the COVID lockdown." 

Read the full interview