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Prevailing economic research anticipates the burden of climate change falling on hot or poor nations. Some predict that cooler or wealthier economies will be unaffected or even see benefits from higher temperatures.
However, a new study co-authored by researchers from the University of Cambridge suggests that virtually all countries—whether rich or poor, hot or cold—will suffer economically by 2100 if the current trajectory of carbon emissions is maintained.
In fact, the research published today by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that—on average—richer, colder countries would lose as much income to climate change as poorer, hotter nations.
Under a "business as usual" emissions scenario, average global temperatures are projected to rise over four degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This would cause the United States to lose 10.5% of its GDP by 2100—a substantial economic hit, say researchers.
Canada, which some claim will benefit economically from temperature increase, would lose over 13% of its income by 2100. The research shows that keeping to the Paris Agreement limits the losses of both North American nations to under 2% of GDP.
Researchers say that 7% of global GDP is likely to vanish by the end of the century unless "action is taken". Japan, India and New Zealand lose 10% of their income. Switzerland is likely to have an economy that is 12% smaller by 2100. Russia would be shorn of 9% of its GDP, with the UK down by 4%.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 26 2019, @09:19AM
1939 was 80 years ago. What percent of the GDP do you reckon they thought would be driven by internet based companies? How about manufacturing? I'm sure you see the point. Relative or absolute is no less absurd my boorish friend.
Similarly the issue I mentioned is one that climatologists are well aware of, but one that is not covered by our sensationalizing media, which in turn results in less general knowledge of such issues. There are numerous climate anomalies and these are periods where the climate changed, sometimes dramatically, for reasons that are not clear. One of the more recent is the medieval warm period. Over a period of about 350 years starting toward the mid of the 900s there was a rapid warming event. This event was initially thought to be local, but recent evidence is increasingly indicating it was global. In most areas the temperature rose above late 20th century baselines. In some specific regions (including north america), it was warmer then than even today. This is extremely relevant in either case as this paper talks about region specific impact.
The biggest issue with these warming periods is we have no idea what causes them, or stops them. They are not driven by CO2 levels though CO2 does tend to increase following these events due to typical feedback effects such as the melting of ice that was previously trapping CO2. If you run modern climate models on the periods prior to the anomalies, they all fail to predict such because they are all fundamentally driven by a correlation between CO2 and temperature. When that correlation fails to hold, which it often has, the models also fail.
These sort of issues are not given the concern that they deserve. When Newtonian physics failed in the slightest way, Mercury's real orbit being off its predicted orbit by literally 1/100th of a degree per century, it was a major problem in physics for centuries. By contrast when we know that modern climatic completely are completely broken, we mostly just handwave it away or retrofit the narrative of failures. For instance the IPCC climate paper provided numerous tiers of predictions in 1990. Our warming has fallen well below their 'best' model, and indeed is at the very bottom of the 'low' scale. Why so little warming compared to what was expected? Who knows. And now increasingly often papers and article instead simply surmise the past as 'falling within IPCC prediction ranges.' True, but grossly misleading. Is the idea to inform or to persuade?