Costs of Inaction on Key Environmental Challenges

Citation

(2009), "Costs of Inaction on Key Environmental Challenges", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 18 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2009.07318cae.007

Costs of Inaction on Key Environmental Challenges

Costs of Inaction on Key Environmental Challenges

Article Type: Book reviews From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 18, Issue 3

OECD,Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development,Paris,www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda2008,213 pp.,ISBN 978-92-64-04577-4,$62 (paperback); $43 (e-book, PDF format) OECD

Policy arguments about the high cost of changing things – from alleviating climate change to instituting universal healthcare coverage to bailing out banks – are fairly frequent. We hear less often about the cost of doing nothing, which can also be pretty substantial. This OECD publication attempts to delineate the costs of failing to solve the critical environmental problems of the early twenty-first century.

Perhaps because the goal is so ambitious, the volume delivers less than its title promises. For instance, the chapter “Costs of Inaction with Respect to Environment-Related Industrial Accidents and Natural Disasters”, does not really tell us how much is at stake if we fail to deal with these issues. It is a summary of high-priced disasters we have already experienced, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Exxon Valdez spill, and so on. “The costs of inaction with respect to environment-related industrial accidents and natural disasters are an issue of increasing importance”, the chapter concludes. But we already knew that.

What the book does deliver is an excellent reference for the economic impact of a wide variety of environmental problems, including climate change and air quality, as well as hazards. The largest oil spill since 1967? Atlantic Empress, 1979, off Tobago, West Indies, 287,000 metric tons.

Percent of total health costs related to pain and suffering from bronchitis? Fifty percent. Discounted present value of damages from climate change with “no policy?” $22.65 trillion. And so on.

Costs of Inaction can also be a little maddening in its use of referential shorthand. In the discussion of regional health risks due to climate change, the book describes scenarios in World Health Organization regions like Africa-D or Europe-B, but does not elaborate on what nations or latitudes those regions encompass. Similarly, the book portrays estimates of sea level rise, increased vulnerability to hunger, and other climate issues based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios, but never explains what those scenarios represent.