Antinuclear

Trillions up in smoke: The staggering economic cost of climate change inaction, New Daily, Ben Silvester, 8 Sept 20, Over the next 30 years, increasing economic damages from climate change will cost the Australian economy at least $1.89 trillion – or roughly 4 per cent of projected GDP each year – if current emissions policies are maintained.New research from the University of Melbourne reveals annual economic damages by 2038 will be comparable to the current estimated annual cost of COVID-19 in Australia.

There have been many attempts at estimating the economic cost of climate change, but the researchers said this is the most detailed and globally comprehensive to date.

The modelling covers 139 countries in four potential warming scenarios from now to 2100.

The projections draw on a modelling framework in the journal Earth’s Future in 2018 and have been continually updated through adding data points for bushfires and other ecological events.

“There is no model in the world that is nearly this computationally large,” said lead researcher Professor Tom Kompas of the university’s school of biosciences.

“It’s as much as 10 times larger than standard basic models.”

The detail built into the projections allowed researchers to drill down and discover how each country will be affected by rising temperatures at particular points in the coming century.

Previous models could only provide average damages across large regions or the world as a whole………….

If this trajectory is maintained, the research found that the economic cost of climate change for Australia alone will total at least $1.89 trillion by 2050 and exceed $100 billion in annual damages by 2038.

Professor Kompas described the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as “devastating”, but he said it also puts the huge economic threat of climate change into context.

“By 2038, on average projections, climate change may well be dealing a COVID-sized blow to the Australian economy every year … [it] will imply more job losses, unemployment and deeper cuts in GDP. And those damages will continue to increase disproportionately year after year,” Professor Kompas said.

Much of the economic damage will be from rising sea levels wreaking havoc on property, infrastructure and agriculture along the coast.

It is calculated that damages of more than $992 billion over the next three decades, or more than $30 billion a year, on average, from sea level rise and storm surge alone.

The modelling also predicts productivity losses of $261 billion as rising temperatures make it harder for certain crops to grow and for outdoor labourers to work, while losses in biodiversity total $277 billion with thousands of species at risk of extinction.

“Many of these damages ramp up over time,” Professor Kompas said.

But he said Australia is already getting a taste of what’s around the corner, the past “Black Summer” bushfires being an example.

The researchers tallied up the damage to property, infrastructure and agriculture caused by the recent bushfires, assessing the cost at $48 billion.

And with research suggesting Australia will have two more “megafires” before the end of the decade, Professor Kompas calculates that by 2050 bushfires will have cost the economy about $360 billion.

The $1.89 trillion cost to the economy in the next 30 years is almost certainly an underestimate, he said.

His research does not yet account for damage to Australia’s major environmental assets, pollution from burning fossil fuels, tourism losses and natural disasters other than bushfires……. https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/09/10/economic-cost-climate-change/