the case for doing nothing

When taking action on climate change is dismissed as too costly or bad for the economy, advocates argue that not taking action will be even more costly. This may be true on a global scale, but not necessarily for Alaska, or anyone else.
Alaska is already spending big bucks dealing with impacts of climate change and will likely spend billions more in the future. But even if it cut its own greenhouse gas emissions to zero -- at great cost -- it could hope to have only a tiny effect on the rate of climate change, and would still end up paying most of those mitigation costs.
That's if the rest of the world did nothing.
If the rest of the world dramatically reduced its emissions, Alaska would still be better off doing nothing -- you can bring nothing to a potluck and still eat. Selfishly speaking, Alaska or any city, state, or country is best off letting others do the work.
But if you look at it another way, Alaska could be a winner. It's in the arctic, where changes are happening faster than in other places, and could see some of the costliest impacts. So if everyone reduces emissions -- at about the same cost per ton around the world -- Alaska would be spared its high mitigation costs while other places would be spared lesser costs. A dollar spent reducing emissions in Alaska might save two in mitigation, while a dollar spent in Iowa might save only one.