Global warming may boost economic inequality
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/global-warming-may-boost-economic-inequality
Source: By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Over the past half-century, climate change has been blamed for heat waves, flooding, and rising seas. Now, researchers say warmer temperatures are widening the chasm separating richer and poorer countries, effectively boosting the economies of many wealthy polluters while dampening growth in much of the developing world. As a result, inequality between the haves and have-nots is already 25% greater than it would be in a cooler world, the paper asserts. ...The new work builds on previous research that found economic activity peaks at an average temperature of 13°C. ...Lower temperatures can hamper weather-dependent sectors like agriculture, but hotter temperatures can wither crops, sap workers’ energy, and exacerbate social conflicts. ...In the new study, ...climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh and economist Marshall Burke...used climate and economic models to tease out the economic impacts of climate change country by country, starting in 1961. ...between 1961 and 2010, many countries near the equator, which are generally poorer, lost an average of more than 25% of potential growth in gross domestic product (GDP) because of global warming, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many cooler, mostly wealthier countries, in contrast, enjoyed an economic bump of 20% or more, thanks to warmer weather. Since 1961, for example, Norway’s per capita GDP grew an extra 34%, while India lost almost the same amount....
Source: By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine.
Excerpt: Over the past half-century, climate change has been blamed for heat waves, flooding, and rising seas. Now, researchers say warmer temperatures are widening the chasm separating richer and poorer countries, effectively boosting the economies of many wealthy polluters while dampening growth in much of the developing world. As a result, inequality between the haves and have-nots is already 25% greater than it would be in a cooler world, the paper asserts. ...The new work builds on previous research that found economic activity peaks at an average temperature of 13°C. ...Lower temperatures can hamper weather-dependent sectors like agriculture, but hotter temperatures can wither crops, sap workers’ energy, and exacerbate social conflicts. ...In the new study, ...climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh and economist Marshall Burke...used climate and economic models to tease out the economic impacts of climate change country by country, starting in 1961. ...between 1961 and 2010, many countries near the equator, which are generally poorer, lost an average of more than 25% of potential growth in gross domestic product (GDP) because of global warming, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Many cooler, mostly wealthier countries, in contrast, enjoyed an economic bump of 20% or more, thanks to warmer weather. Since 1961, for example, Norway’s per capita GDP grew an extra 34%, while India lost almost the same amount....