Costs of Climate Crisis
On top of the avoidable suffering and death caused from the climate crisis, economists report that the cost of climate inaction will be more than the cost of climate action. Transitioning to renewables will be good for the economy.
The climate crisis is partially to blame for current inflation and economists say will be a main driver of inflation in the future as crops needed for production fail, infrastructure is destroyed, and workers are forced to stay home during heat-waves and extreme weather events. New research reports that climate damages will cost $38 trillion per year by 2050.
Read a roundup of the headlines:
“The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.
Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating.
It found average costs of $140bn (£115bn) a year from 2000 to 2019, although the figure varies significantly from year to year. The latest data shows $280bn in costs in 2022. The researchers said lack of data, particularly in low-income countries, meant the figures were likely to be seriously underestimated. Additional climate costs, such as from crop yield declines and sea level rise, were also not included.”
The Guardian, Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates
“Thousands of CEOs say they expect 2023′s high prices to rise even more over the course of the year. Their reason: climate change.
A majority of company leaders expect to see anywhere from a “moderate” to “very large” impact on costs due to climate change within the next year, according to a recent survey of more than 4,400 CEOs from around the world, conducted by accounting and consulting firm PwC.
In recent months, climate-fueled disasters have killed crops, eroded infrastructure, impeded energy supplies and prevented workers’ from staying on the job amid record heat. Such incidents have led environmental experts and economists to establish a link between climate change and inflation.
Climate change isn’t considered a primary driver of today’s inflation, but economists say the connection will deepen as the planet continues to warm — making the link more noticeable and acute.”
CNBC, Costs could rise even more in 2023—and thousands of CEOs blame climate change
“Climate change is a secret driver of inflation,” said Nicole Corbett, a vice president at NielsenIQ. “As extreme weather continues to impact crops and production capacity, the cost of necessities will continue to rise.”
Halfway around the world in Pakistan, the world’s sixth-largest producer of upland cotton, severe flooding, made worse by climate change, destroyed half that country’s cotton crop.
There have been other drags on the global cotton supply. In 2021, the United States banned imports of cotton from the Xinjiang region of China, a major cotton producing area, out of concerns about the use of forced labor.”
NY Times, How Climate Change Is Making Tampons (and Lots of Other Stuff) More Expensive
“The causes were numerous, from the war in Ukraine to the post-pandemic economic recovery. But in many sectors, the specter of climate change was also lurking behind these higher costs. Extreme swings in temperature and precipitation caused shortages and soaring prices for essential utilities like electricity, heat, and water. A series of catastrophic weather disasters scrambled the supply chains for vegetables and staple grains.
Many of us tend to think that we’re still immune to the direct effects of the climate crisis, but make no mistake — those effects are already here, and they’re hitting our wallets. Here is a look at some of the ways warming came back to bite us at the cash register in 2022.”
Grist, 5 ways climate change made life more expensive in 2022
“The economic toll of deadly heat waves, crop-killing droughts and rising seas that each additional ton of carbon dioxide levies on society is much higher than the U.S. government tallies when considering new regulations, according to a new analysis published Thursday.
A sobering paper in the journal Nature on the damage caused by climate change brings into relief the threat that higher temperatures pose on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people at home and overseas.
The research team’s key finding: Each additional ton of carbon dioxide that cars, power plants and other sources add to the atmosphere costs society $185 — more than triple the federal government’s current figure.”
The Washington Post, Costs of climate change far surpass government estimates, study says
“Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy could save the world as much as $12tn (£10.2tn) by 2050, an Oxford University study says.
The report said it was wrong and pessimistic to claim that moving quickly towards cleaner energy sources was expensive.
Gas prices have soared on mounting concerns over energy supplies.
But the researchers say that going green now makes economic sense because of the falling cost of renewables.
"Even if you're a climate denier, you should be on board with what we're advocating," Prof Doyne Farmer from the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School told BBC News.
"Our central conclusion is that we should go full speed ahead with the green energy transition because it's going to save us money," he said.
BBC, Switching to renewable energy could save trillions - study
“James Nixon, head of climate change macroeconomics at Oxford Economics, put the cumulative amount of investments needed in the energy and other sectors at almost $140 trillion by 2050, the highest estimate obtained in the survey.
"While mitigation may be expensive and potentially politically painful, I think it's incumbent on economists to show that not doing anything is even more expensive," he said.
A "business-as-usual" trajectory leading to temperature rises of 1.6C, 2.4C and 4.4C by 2030, 2050 and 2100 respectively would result in 2.4% lost output by 2030, 10% by 2050 and 18% by 2100, according to the median replies to the survey.”
Reuters, Climate inaction costlier than net zero transition: Reuters poll
More Reading
The Guardian, Loss of fossil fuel assets would not impoverish general public, study finds
CNN, Climate crisis costs up over 800% as UN donor nations fail to keep pace, report says
NPR, The future cost of climate inaction? $2 trillion a year, says the government
Deloitte Report, Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5 Trillion by 2070