[MCN] Burn the coal, take the economy down 23 notches (or more)

[Lance Olsen]

Unmitigated Climate Change to Shrink Global Economy
By Ben Gruber, Reuters
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/unmitigated-climate-change-global-economy-19712
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"The study focused exclusively on the impact of 
temperature change. Other factors linked to 
climate change, such as the frequency and 
distribution of extreme weather events and sea 
level rise, aren't accounted for. That means the 
23 percent drop in the global economy by 2100, 
could be just a starting figure.

'The guys that are at the top of the hill right 
now, places like the United States and China, 
they are going to start falling down the hill and 
performing poorly,' said Hsiang.

Countries currently hotter than the optimal 
temperature zone, such as Brazil and most of 
Africa, will be even worse off than they are now, 
according to the report."
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When the world heats up, economies around the 
globe will cool down. That's according to a new 
study which predicts that rising temperatures due 
to climate change will wreak havoc on economic 
output.  

"Our best estimate is that the global economy as 
a whole will be 23 percent smaller in 2100 than 
if we would avoid climate change entirely," said 
co-author of the study Solomon Hsiang, an 
associate professor of public policy at the 
University of California Berkeley.

The study looked at the relationship between 
temperature and economic activity in 166 
countries over a 50 year period. The findings 
indicate climate change will widen global 
inequality, perhaps dramatically, because warming 
is good for cold countries, which tend to be 
richer, and more harmful for hot countries, which 
tend to be poorer. In the researchers' benchmark 
estimate, climate change will reduce average 
income in the poorest 40 percent of countries by 
75 percent in 2100.

"There is sort of an optimal temperature band 
where countries seem to do really well from an 
economic standpoint and on either side there are 
temperatures that are too cold and temperatures 
that are too hot," Hsiang said. 

The magic number is 13 degrees Celsius or 55 
degrees Fahrenheit, which is roughly the average 
temperature of the largest economies right now. 
But in 100 hundred years, if climate change goes 
unchecked, that could change dramatically.

"The guys that are at the top of the hill right 
now, places like the United States and China, 
they are going to start falling down the hill and 
performing poorly," said Hsiang.

Countries currently hotter than the optimal 
temperature zone, such as Brazil and most of 
Africa, will be even worse off than they are now, 
according to the report. 

The study focused exclusively on the impact of 
temperature change. Other factors linked to 
climate change, such as the frequency and 
distribution of extreme weather events and sea 
level rise, aren't accounted for. That means the 
23 percent drop in the global economy by 2100, 
could be just a starting figure.

The study is sure to interest world leaders at 
the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in 
Paris.

Along with Hsiang, the study was authored by 
Edward Miguel, UC Berkeley, and Marshall Burke, 
Stanford University
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"To effectively reduce emissions, societies need 
to focus on reducing the consumption of energy at 
both the individual/household level and the 
system level Š "

Andrew K. Jorgenson. Analysing fossil-fuel 
displacement. Nature Climate Change, June 2012
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