The natural science in GEO-6 makes clear that a range and variety of unwelcome outcomes for humanity, with potentially very significant impacts for human health, become increasingly likely if societies maintain their current development paths. This paper assesses what is known about the likely economic implications of either current trends or the transformation to a low-carbon and resource-efficient economy in the years to 2050 for which GEO-6 calls. A key conclusion is that no conventional cost–benefit analysis for either scenario is possible. This is because the final cost of meeting various decarbonisation and resource-management pathways depends on decisions made today in changing behaviour and generating innovation. The inadequacies of conventional modelling approaches generally lead to understating the risks from unmitigated climate change and overstating the costs of a low-carbon transition, by missing out the cumulative gains from path-dependent innovation. This leads to a flawed conclusion as to how to respond to the climate emergency, namely that significant reductions in emissions are prohibitively expensive and, therefore, to be avoided until new, cost-effective technologies are developed. We argue that this is inconsistent with the evidence and counterproductive in serving to delay decarbonisation efforts, thereby increasing its costs. Understanding the processes which drive innovation, change social norms and avoid locking in to carbon- and resource-intensive technologies, infrastructure and behaviours, will help decision makers as they ponder how to respond to the increasingly stark warnings of natural scientists about the deteriorating condition of the natural environment.

GEO-6 中的自然科学清楚地表明，如果社会维持当前的发展道路，那么一系列对人类不受欢迎的结果（对人类健康可能产生非常重大的影响）的可能性就会变得越来越大。本文评估了当前趋势或 GEO-6 所呼吁的 2050 年向低碳和资源节约型经济转型可能产生的经济影响。一个关键的结论是，对于这两种情况都不可能进行传统的成本效益分析。这是因为满足各种脱碳和资源管理途径的最终成本取决于今天在改变行为和产生创新方面做出的决策。传统建模方法的不足通常导致低估了未缓解的气候变化带来的风险，并夸大了低碳转型的成本，错过了路径依赖型创新的累积收益。这导致了关于如何应对气候紧急情况的错误结论，即大幅减少排放的成本过高，因此在开发出新的、具有成本效益的技术之前应避免这样做。我们认为，这与证据不一致，并且会适得其反地推迟脱碳工作，从而增加其成本。了解推动创新、改变社会规范以及避免锁定碳和资源密集型技术、基础设施和行为的过程，将有助于决策者思考如何应对自然科学家关于环境恶化的日益严厉的警告。自然环境。