MAGICC calculator reveals that cuts in carbon emissions will reduce ‘warming’ by a fraction of a degree Celsius, while costing trillions of dollars.
By Paul MacRae, Climate Realists of B.C., October 22, 2025
An opinion article that appeared Oct. 5, 2025, in the Victoria Times Colonist entitled “Can we untie it?” argues that forest fires have dangerously increased in recent years mainly due to human-caused global warming, and that the smoke from these fires is deadly to humans in the short- and long-run.
Similarly, the article argues, heatwaves are increasing, and with them human deaths from heatwaves. Together, forest-fire smoke and heatwaves are causing “accelerated” dying.
The authors’ solution? Reducing our carbon and methane emissions to “zero” as soon as possible. In particular, the authors suggest, we can cool the planet, and reduce these fires and heatwaves (saving countless lives!) by a much more aggressive approach to taxing carbon emissions using, among others, Canada’s “world-class” carbon taxes.
The climate reality is, fortunately, a bit less alarmist.
Forest fires much more common in 100 years
For a start, today’s forest fires are not unprecedented or even unusual. U.S. Fire Service data shows that wildfires were much more common in the 1930s and 1940s in the U.S. than today (see Figure 1),1 and the same has been true globally (see Figure 2).
Similarly, recent heatwaves are nothing new or particularly concerning, although climate alarmists would like the public to believe that somehow heatwaves are going off the charts. Figure 4 shows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s claim that heatwaves have increased since the 1960s.2
But note the little box in the upper right corner, labelled Figure 3. If you click on that you get Figure 4, which shows the U.S. annual heat wave index from 1895-2015.
It’s clear that heatwaves were far, far worse in the 1930s than today—today’s heatwaves are only “increasing” when you look at the short term; in the long term, there is nothing particularly unusual or “scary” about them. Both forest fires and heatwaves were much, much worse in the past!
Climate-alarmist organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believe that most of the warming caused by human carbon emissions has occurred since about 1950. For example, the IPCC’s 2021 report (AR6) states: “Human-induced climate change is the main driver of many changes observed since the 1950s.”3
But if mainly natural factors caused “extreme” heatwaves and much more widespread wildfires before 1950, when even the IPCC doesn’t finger CO2 emissions for the warming, then why would we believe that today’s warming isn’t just nature once again in a natural warming phase, as nature has done so many times before?
‘Extreme’ Cold kills far more people than ‘extreme’ warming
The opinion article’s authors also worry about increased deaths due to heatwaves and wildfires. But in 2021, the British medical journal The Lancet reported that from 2000-2019, cold weather killed nine times more people than hot weather (see Figure 5).4 In other words, a warmer planet is, on the whole, safer and healthier for most of humanity than a colder planet.
IPCC’s own calculator debunks usefulness of carbon taxes
But if more proof is needed that using carbon taxes, “world-class” or otherwise, will have any measurable or useful effect on today’s warming temperatures, and therefore reduce forest fires, or heatwaves, or any other climate-related issue, we we only have to look at the IPCC’s own calculations.
The IPCC has a model called MAGICC (Model for Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change) that calculates how much warming would be prevented by a given reduction in CO2 emissions. The calculator is available online at https://calculators.heritage.org/climate/calculate-the-temperature-changes-for-alternative-carbon-dioxide-reduction-policies/.
As Figure 6 shows, the calculator offers several variables, including the end year (2050 or 2100); how sensitive the climate is to a doubling of carbon dioxide (from 2°Celsius to 5°C); and how much the developed nations reduce their carbon emissions (from 20 per cent to 100 per cent). Only the U.S. and European Union are included in the calculator because less-developed nations like high-emitting China and India are not required to reduce emissions until they feel they have achieved “developed” status, which will likely be “never”.
So, in the Figure 6 example, if by 2100 the developed nations had reduced emissions by a huge 40 per cent (not realistic, but if), and the climate sensitivity was a fairly high 3°C, global temperatures would be reduced by 0.09°C, a temperature too low to be detected by the human body.
Let’s go crazy and assume that the developed world reduced emissions by (an impossible) 100 per cent in the same scenario (in other words, we would have achieved something close to Net Zero). As Figure 7 shows, at the absolute maximum, by 2050 our carbon curbs would have prevented only 0.13°C of warming, which is also not detectible by the human body.
A 100 per cent cut in emissions is not possible (unless we all want to go back to the Stone Age). Even a 20 per cent cut in emissions is just barely feasible. For example, by 2035, Canada aims to reduce carbon emissions by 45 per cent from 2005 levels. However, from 2005 to 2023, Canada’s emissions fell by only 8.5 per cent,5 How likely is Canada to reach 20 per cent, much less 40 or 100? Extremely unlikely.
Reducing temperatures a fraction of a degree will cost trillions
How much are we willing to spend to achieve these minuscule reductions in warming?
A 2022 McKinsey Global Institute study estimated US$275 trillion globally by 2050, with the goal of keeping the temperature increase from pre-industrial times (the mid-1800s) to 1.5°C (or at most 2°C).((“The Net Zero transition: What it would cost, what it could bring,” McKinsey & Company, 2022)) As Figure 7 shows, the maximum reduction in temperature, assuming all developed nations reached Net Zero by 2050, would be 0.13°C (and realistically much less). Spending trillions to produce a reduction in warming this tiny makes no economic or climate sense.
Closer to home, the B.C. government’s own calculations show that its CleanBC climate “roadmap” would reduce the province’s GDP by $28 billion in 2030, compared to the GDP without CleanBC.6 This means that in 2030, each of B.C.’s four million citizens would be poorer by about $7,000. How many of us are willing to take a hit of $28,000 a year for a family of four to stop a maximum of 0.13°C of warming (and realistically much, much less)? Any takers?
If you want to embarrass a B.C. government (or any government) official, just ask them how much this billions in spending and billions in lost GDP will actually reduce the temperature increase. Your chances of getting a reply are very low, primarily because a temperature reduction this low, if openly admitted, is clearly ridiculous. So government officials hope no one will ask….
Any temperature reductions will be trivial, at enormous cost
The IPCC’s MAGICC calculator shows clearly that carbon taxes, even if “world-class,” would have a trivial effect on global temperatures, and therefore a trivial effect in reducing forest fires, or heatwaves, or any other climate-related phenomenon. However, spending trillions of dollars to fight a non-existent “climate crisis” will make the average citizen much, much poorer.
There is a better approach than trying to stifle the fossil-fuel economy through carbon taxes, an approach that will cost trillions of dollars for an almost imperceptible effect on “global warming.” Instead, we should be using the energy of fossil fuels and the wealth they generate to develop policies and engineering solutions that will allow us to adapt to a warmer climate, while gradually and naturally shifting over the next century to other forms of energy (almost certainly nuclear).
For a related article on how climate scientists are fooling the public by using deceptive data to create the impression of an “accelerated” sea-level rise, see Climate scientists deliberately deceiving public about ‘accelerated’ sea-level rise on this website.
- Figure 1 appears in Bjorn Lomborg’s “Hot Air and Cold Truths.” Fraser Institute, pp. 8-9, Chapter 3: The planet is not on fire [↩]
- You can find this webpage at https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-waves [↩]
- IPCC AR6, Physical Science Basis, Chapter 3, section 3.1.1 [↩]
- Qi Zhao, et al., “Global, regional, and national burden of mortality associated with non-optimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study.” The Lancet Planetary Health, July 2021. [↩]
- Government of Canada, “Greenhouse gas emissions.” March 21, 2025. [↩]
- Ken Peacock & Denise Mullen, “Government’s own modelling shows its CleanBC plan will dampen economic growth and set B.C.’s prosperity back more than a decade.” Business Council of B.C., Aug. 9, 2023. See also https://climaterealists.ca/ndps-own-models-show-cleanbc-policy-will-damage-economic-growth-a-lot/ [↩]