Study: Cost Of Climate Change To Be Much More Expensive Than Mitigating Temperature Rise

Climate change is becoming a big drag on the global
economy and a new study suggests that will keep
getting worse in the coming decades.

 It'll cost six times more money to deal with the cost of unmitigated climate change between now and 2050 than it would to keep global temperatures from reaching more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. 

Doing nothing to blunt climate change would cost roughly $38 trillion per year by 2049, concluded a study published in the journal Nature.  

As Artstechnica.com reports:

"They find that we're already committed to warming that will see the growth of the global economy undercuts by 20 percent. That places the cost of even a limited period of climate change at roughly six times the estimated price of putting the world on a path to limit the warming to 2 degrees C."

A common talking point among those who are fighting efforts to limit climate is that those efforts are too expensive and a drag on the global economy.  The Nature study completely contradicts that position. 

Nations worldwide would feel the economic effects of climate change, whether it be poor developing nations and others considered to be at the top of the economic heap, like the United States and Germany. 

It's not that economies will stop growing in the coming decades due to climate change. It's just they will grow more slowly than they would have without it.

You'd think that extreme weather brought on by climate change, such as floods, powerful storms or intense hurricanes would create the brunt of the coming economic chaos. Those events would indeed have an effect the researchers concluded.

However, just the overall increase in heat distributed throughout much of the world would have the biggest effect. The added heat on balance would harm crops and hinder labor production. (Which, as an aside, makes efforts by Florida and Texas to block municipalities in those states to provide rest and water breaks for outdoor workers look especially stupid).

Southern parts of North America and Europe take an economic hit from climate change while northern reaches benefit. The minority of nations that might actually benefit a bit from global warming include Canada,  Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden, according to the study. 

The pattern repeats in the United States. Southern states take a bigger monetary hit from climate change compared to those closer to the Canadian border, 

Much of the economic harm through the middle of this century is already locked in due to climate change. But emissions reductions done now could go a long way toward blunting economic hard after 2050 from climate change is already locked.

You can read the Nature study for yourself at this hyperlink. 

 

Will An Increase In Rainy Days Hurt The Economy?

An increase in rainy days caused by climate change can
harm economies worldwide, especially in industrialized 
nations, new research indicates. Photos is of a sudden
summer downpour disrupting lunchtime in 
Burlington, Vermont several years ago. 

 We know that an increase in weather disasters brought on by climate change is bad for a huge number of reasons. One of them is that they are a drag on the global economy.  

But what about just an increase in rainy days. 

Climate scientists tell us that overall, a warmer climate means more and heavier rain.  (Yes, climate change increases droughts in some areas, too, but rain is still a big issue here).

As ABC News reports, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have concluded that extreme rainfall, combined with just more generally rainy days are likely to hurt global economies.  

Extreme rainfall has long been established as a climate change hazard. Such new, torrential rains can cause a lot of damage to buildings, roads and such,  never mind the direct effects it has on businesses and people's livelihoods. 

However, more rains, even if they don't cause all that much damage, can disrupt business, manufacturing and transportation, among other aspects of the economy, said Leonie Wenz a lead scientist in the research.  

Reports ABC News: 

"'We know from previous work that flooding associated with extreme rainfall can damage infrastructure, which is critical to economic productivity, ad also cause local disruptions to production,'" said Wenz, adding that the new findings also suggest everyday disruptions caused by more rain will have 'a disruptive effect on businesses, manufacturing, transportation.'"

Industrialized nations are likely to fare worse than more agrarian economies. After all, you need rain to grow crops, right?  In industrialized nations, rain slows travel, disrupts outdoor work and puts consumers in less of a mood to go out and shop. 

As NPR reports: 

"Just a few extra inches of rain throughout the year could diminish a country's annual growth by half a percentage point - a significant decline, the study points out, given that most developed nations grow by 2 to 3 percentage points annually."  

The bottom line: It's not just the high end disasters or the temperature extremes that will get you with climate change. It's the weirder much more uneven distribution of precipitation that will screw things up, too.