The CoCEB model is used to evaluate hypotheses on the long-term effect of investment in emission abatement, and on the comparative efficacy of different approaches to abatement. While many studies in the literature treat abatement costs as an unproductive loss of income, we show that mitigation costs do slow down economic growth over the next few decades, but only up to the mid-21st century or even earlier; growth reduction is compensated later on by having avoided climate negative impacts.