Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Annual Cost of Climate Change 'Will Be £190bn'
UN has underestimated financial burden of global warming, study finds
The true global cost of adapting to climate change is likely to be many times greater than official United Nations' estimates: in 2030 alone, the world could be spending more than three times the annual budget of the NHS, a study has found.
British experts have discovered that the UN has seriously underestimated the expected annual cost of dealing with climate impacts. (Photo: The Independent) A team of British experts has discovered that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has seriously underestimated the expected annual cost of dealing with climate impacts. It suggests that the true cost could be at least two or three-fold greater, and possibly much more if other hidden factors are taken into account.
Estimates of how much the world will have to spend annually on adapting to some of the worst impacts of climate change have varied widely, but the UNFCCC has suggested that typically it could be about $70bn or $100bn (£44bn and £63bn) by 2030, the cost of about three Beijing Olympics. But other scientists have now suggested that the true annual cost could easily reach $300bn or more.
"Just looking in depth at the sectors the UNFCCC did study, we estimate adaptation costs to be two to three times higher, and when you include sectors the UNFCCC left out, the true cost is probably much greater," said Professor Martin Parry, the lead author of the report, Assessing the Cost of Adaptation to Climate Change. "The amount of money on the table at Copenhagen is one of the key factors that will determine whether we achieve a climate-change agreement. But previous estimates of adaptation costs have substantially misjudged the scale of funds needed," added the professor, a visiting fellow at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.
Adaptations to climate change include the additional spending needed to improve measures such as building new flood defences and transporting water for agriculture, treating an increase in the range and severity of diseases, and replacing buildings and other infrastructure affected by rising temperatures or water levels.
The UNFCCC had commissioned a series of studies to address the estimated costs of several adaptation measures but it was under pressure to produce results in a short time period and the studies were not fully reviewed by outside experts, Professor Parry said.
"Many of the previous estimates, it would be fair to say, were based on back-of-the-envelope calculations. In fact, one person said they were written on the back of a metro ticket. We think these numbers are underestimates... they don't stack up," Professor Parry said.
The authors of the report said that the costs of adapting to climate change begin to soar aftere other sectors of the economy not dealt with by the UNFCCC are taken into consideration. They includes tourism, energy and manufacturing. The sectors the UNFCCC did deal with were treated in only a partial manner, the report says.
One of the biggest underestimates is the additional cost of building new homes, offices, roads and other infrastructure affected by climate change. This cost alone could be many times higher than previous estimates.
14 Comments so far
Show AllInstead of $billions for cleanup... invest in prevention. For 60 basis points of tax you can have free public transit in your town. Not just a theory. It is happening now. Join us.
http://freepublictransit.org
For $1 billion per year the Arctic Ocean's ice pack could be restored, inhibiting many of the effects of global warming before the methane is released, not after.
For maybe $50 million, 100 improvements to public transit could be rolled out, crushing transit's cost per passenger-mile, and improving system robustness and safety.
Please throw rotten tomatoes if you have them, not good ones. It's not stupidity on the part of your government's brightest and best, just a combination of groupthink, inertia and some political corruption. Then again, "Stupid is as stupid does." -- Forrest Gump's mama, in "Forrest Gump".
Their cost estimates, of course, include profits for the few.
What would the costs be if everything were done on a non-profit basis by people working to save their kids' lives, not make money for the already-overwealthy?
what are the actuarial forecasts for near-future population change, as opposed to population growth, in light of the dramatic changes in our natural environment? I find it interesting that I hear so much about the population increasing, but as I look forward to a planet with fewer, and largely damaged, living components, as well as shrinking employment, and, therefore, fewer tax dollars for anything, I wonder how can that view hold?
Wouldn't costs go down with population count?
In poor countries, the population goes up. People are afraid so they take the only kind of social security available to them -- have lots of kids. Exception: China, where they have lots of peasant riots and lots of cancer.
When oil gets scarce, carbon dioxide production goes up. People turn to marginal coal supplies, burn down their forests for fuel, or rape tar sands areas.
I appreciate your sensible response...I guess I'm expecting our rampant, reckless use of chemicals to eventually adversely affect the human reproductive process for everyone...poor and rich alike...
This is making the enormous assumption that all problems can be fixed with money, we'll just have to throw more money at this particular problem. There are going to be climate change impacts that no amount of cash can fix...in fact, we have probably already reached the point of no return. Might as well just say it.
Triage.
Touché
"Adaptations to climate change include the additional spending needed to improve measures such as building new flood defences and transporting water for agriculture, treating an increase in the range and severity of diseases, and replacing buildings and other infrastructure affected by rising temperatures or water levels."
It strikes me that these adaptations don't address the core problem (climate change) and our behaviors that cause it. The adaptations are just ways to continue our destructive, unsustainable way of life. Maybe the money could be spent in ways to help slow our decent into the inevitable collapse of civilization rather than into the coffers of the wealthy which will only speed us towards our collective destructive end. Oh boy, I really need to stop reading Derrick Jensen. I'm depressing myself.
There is NO solution to climate change to be found within the global capitalist system that demands continuous unsustainable growth. To save our planet, we must change the system. Capitalism will never pick up the "costs" of climate change. It simply cannot afford to. So much for the UN report. What a load of rubbish.
The real costs:
A lot of poor people will suffer even more than they do today.
Many in poor countries will die of starvation due to drought - many in richer countries will be hungry.
Millions will die in wars fought over dwindling resources.
People, and perhaps whole societies, will forget about things like democracy and equality and freedom and the like. Ignorance will increase. Superstition will replace knowledge. The past will be more and more be forgotton.
Species will become extinct. The planet will become a lonely place. There will be a feeling of loss. More and more of the natural beauty of the world will disapear.
Life will become mean, nasty, and brutish.
It won't be fun.
Patriarchy and its underpinning, organized patriarchal religion, and its system of capitalism are suicidal.
Global Warming -- the heat is on -- speaks truth --
"Climate change" is a euphemism seeking to further confuse
the public.
Wake up, America!
It may even be too late to save the planet, but it will
never be too late to rid ourselves of these suicidal systems.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
I'm going to have to read up on this. Doesn't sound right since estimates seem to indicate adaptation as separate from things like normal building that goes on, which would adjust to begin with. Not sure exactly how they came up with these numbers, but seems a bit fishy. I don't know as I say, I need to read up on this.
"Whole world's comin' to an end, Mal." - Mickey