WASHINGTON,
DC — Heat waves, intensified by
climate change, have
cost the global economy trillions of dollars in the last 30 years, a study
published Friday found, with poor countries paying the steepest price.
اضافة اعلان
And those lopsided economic effects contribute to
widening inequalities around the world, according to the research.
“The cost of extreme heat from climate change so far
has been disproportionately borne by the countries and regions least culpable
for global warming,” Dartmouth College professor Justin Mankin, one of the
authors of the study published in the journal Science Advances, told AFP. “And
that’s an insane tragedy.”
“Climate change is playing out on a landscape of
economic inequality, and it is acting to amplify that inequality,” he said.
Periods of extreme heat cost the global economy
about $16 trillion dollars between 1992 and 2013, the study calculated.
But while the richest countries have lost about 1.5
percent of their annual per capita GDPs dealing with heat waves, poorer
countries have lost about 6.7 percent of their annual per capita GDPs.
The reason for that disparity is simple: poor
countries are often situated closer to the tropics, where temperatures are
warmer anyway. During heat waves, they become even hotter.
The study comes just days ahead of the start of the
COP27 climate summit in Egypt, where the question of compensation for countries
which are disproportionately vulnerable to but least responsible for climate
change is expected to be one of the key topics.
The costs of heat waves come from several factors:
effects on agriculture, strains on health systems, less productive workforces,
and physical damage to infrastructure, such as melting roads.
‘Cost of inaction’
Study researchers examined
five days of weather considered extreme for a specific region each year.
“The general idea is to use variation in extreme
heat, which is effectively randomly assigned to all these economic regions, and
see the extent to which that accounts for variation in economic growth” in a
given region, Mankin explained.
“Then the second part is to say, ‘ok, how has
human-caused warming influenced extreme heat?’” he added.
Despite these calculations, the study results almost
certainly underestimate the true cost of extreme heat, according to the paper —
only studying five days per year does not reflect the increased frequency of
such heat events, and not all potential costs were included.
Previous studies on the subject had focused on the
costs of heat to specific sectors, though scientists say it is important to
look at the price tag of climate change holistically.
“You want to know what those costs are, so that you
have a frame of reference against which to compare the cost of action,” Mankin
said, such as establishing cooling centers or installing air conditioners,
versus “the cost of inaction.”
“The dividends economically of responding to the
five hottest days of the year could be quite great,” he said.
But according to Mankin, the most important response
is to reduce carbon emissions to slow down global warming at the source.
“We need to adapt to the
climate we have now, and we also need to deeply invest in mitigation,” he said.
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