What is it about?
This work shows considerable global economic gains from complying with the Paris Climate Accord for 139 countries. For example, with the comparative case of a temperature increase of four degrees, the global gains from complying with the 2 degrees target are approximately US$17,489 billion per year in the long run (year 2100). The relative damages from not complying to Sub‐Sahara Africa, India and Southeast Asia are especially severe.
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Why is it important?
Economists around the world have largely underestimated the damages from climate change (even at the IPCC level). Ours is the first large dimensional model that captures the full effects, albeit with limited damage functions (e.g., loss in productivity, sea level changes, human health effects). More to the point, previous works have not come even close to the $17+ trillion in global damages that we find in our otherwise well-developed global trading model. Based on this work, the necessity of meeting the Paris accord on economic grounds is thus substantiated.
Perspectives
Model outcomes show that South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa are severely impacted at all temperature increases, severely so, underscoring the point that poorer countries are the ones most impacted by climate change. The losses in GDP are stunning here. And, indeed, it emphasises the equity puzzle that goes with these effects – many countries that are major per capita greenhouse gas emitters are the ones less impacted by climate change; countries with relatively less emissions are more severely impacted.
Professor Tom Kompas
University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Effects of Climate Change on GDP by Country and the Global Economic Gains From Complying With the Paris Climate Accord, Earth s Future, August 2018, American Geophysical Union (AGU),
DOI: 10.1029/2018ef000922.
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