Economic crisis to stall climate change

Claim:

“This [economic] crisis puts the nail in the coffin for climate change.”

— Bill Kovacs, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s division for environmental and regulatory affairs, October 17, 2008.

Truth:

Economic studies suggest not only that capping America’s global warming pollution would result in negligible new economic costs, but also that not acting would result in a huge economic burden on our economy.

Solving global warming and reinventing America’s energy infrastructure isn’t going to be free. It is likely that under a cap, energy prices will go up for some Americans in the short term.

Depending on how the policy is designed, though, these increases are relatively modest and can be offset by changes in energy consumption and through subsidies generated through the cap program to reduce the impact of additional energy costs.