Select a
country/region or click on the map to get estimates of how climate change
will affect GDP per
capita as calculated in Burke, Hsiang, and Miguel (2015)
(October 24, 2015) Stanford-Cal
collaboration finds that without climate change mitigation, even wealthy
countries will see an economic downturn by 2100.
When thousands of scientists, economists and policymakers
meet in Paris this December to negotiate an international climate treaty, one
question will dominate conversations: What is the climate worth?
A new study published in the journal Nature shows that the
global economy will take a harder hit from rising temperatures than previously
thought, with incomes falling in most countries by the year 2100 if climate
change continues unchecked. Rich countries may experience a brief economic
uptick, but growth will drop off sharply after temperatures pass a critical
heat threshold.
The study, co-led by Marshall Burke, a professor of Earth
system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental
Sciences, provides a clear picture of how climate change will shape the global
economy, which has been a critical missing piece for the international climate
community leading up to the Paris talks. Understanding how much future climate
change will cost in terms of global economic losses will help policymakers at
the meetings decide how much to invest in emissions reductions today.
The work was co-authored by two researchers from the
University of California, Berkeley: co-lead author Solomon Hsiang, the
Chancellor's Associate Professor of Public Policy, and Edward Miguel, Oxfam Professor
in Environmental and Resource Economics.