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more)</title></head><body>
<div><b>Unmitigated Climate Change to Shrink Global Economy</b><br>
<font face="Georgia"><i>By Ben Gruber, Reuters</i></font></div>
<div><font
face="Georgia"
>http://www.climatecentral.org/news/unmitigated-climate-change-global<span
></span>-economy-19712</font></div>
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face="Georgia"
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<div><font face="Georgia">"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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia">'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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia">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."</font></div>
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<div><font face="Georgia"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia">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. </font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><i><br></i></font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia">"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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"> <br>
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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
"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. </font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
"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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
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. </font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
The study is sure to interest world leaders at the upcoming U.N.
Climate Change Conference in Paris.</font></div>
<div><font face="Georgia"><br>
<i>Along with Hsiang, the study was authored by Edward Miguel, UC
Berkeley, and Marshall Burke, Stanford University</i></font></div>
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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 "<br>
<br>
Andrew K. Jorgenson. Analysing fossil-fuel displacement.<i> Nature
Climate Change,</i> June 2012</font></div>
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