Current:Home > MarketsClimate Change Worsened Global Inequality, Study Finds-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Climate Change Worsened Global Inequality, Study Finds
View Date:2024-12-23 18:57:27
A few countries in cold climates, including Canada, Norway and Russia, likely benefited economically from global warming in past decades, while poorer countries closer to the equator suffered economic losses, a new study says.
The findings suggest that climate change exacerbated global inequality, causing the most economic harm to those who did the least to cause it.
But what the future will look like is less clear. Research has shown that over the long term, just about every part of the world will suffer as global temperatures rise.
The study looked at each country’s per capita GDP—the per-person value of the country’s economic activity—over several decades from as early as 1961 to 2010, and then used climate models to estimate what each country’s GDP would have been without the influence of global warming.
“India, for example, has approximately 30 percent lower per capita GDP today than if global warming had not occurred,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, the study’s lead author and an earth sciences professor at Stanford University. “In India there are hundreds of millions of people living below $2 a day. A 30 percent reduction in per capita GDP is substantial. That is the order of magnitude of the economic impacts during the Great Depression here in the United States.”
When the authors compared their findings across countries, they found the greatest harm to GDP in poorer countries closer to the equator, while a few northern countries showed a GDP gain compared to the model of a world without global warming. The study looked at changes from 1961 to 2010 for those countries with available data, and also from 1991 to 2010 when more national data was available. The United States showed a loss of less than 1 percent, according to the study.
The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, did not discuss the mechanisms by which climate change affects these countries’ economies, though studies have shown how drought and increased temperatures have worsened living and working conditions in countries closer to the equator.
“Researchers and policy makers have been saying for many years that the greatest, most acute impacts of global warming are falling on populations least responsible for creating that global warming,” Diffenbaugh said. “We have quantified the effect.”
GDP Losses Reflect What Countries Are Seeing
The study matches what is being observed in countries around the world, said David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s International Climate Initiative.
“The findings here really are very much in line with what we have been seeing on the ground in terms of the impacts that particularly vulnerable countries have been facing and especially those that are lower-income countries,” Waskow said.
“We need to do a lot more to tease out what are the exact mechanisms that are leading to this loss of GDP,” he said. “I think we would have hunches, a good sense of what those mechanisms are, but obviously one wants to tie the pieces together.”
One recent study showed that even in the United States, economic disparities are projected to grow between warmer, relatively low-income regions in the south and cooler, relatively wealthy regions in the north. The specific drivers of the disparities identified in the study were agriculture, crime, coastal storms, energy use, human mortality and labor.
Questions About the Rich-Country Impact
Other experts in climate economics have questioned the strength of some of the conclusions.
Solomon Hsiang, a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, said “the finding that warming should have already harmed economic opportunities in poor countries is extremely important and almost definitely correct,” but he questioned whether the study could support a conclusion that rich countries had benefited, as well as some of the methods used in the analysis. He noted that previous research suggests that cold-climate countries might benefit from warming initially, but that the long-term harm means a net loss over time.
Wolfram Schlenker, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the university’s Earth Institute, also said he thinks the study’s conclusions may be overstated. “A hot year might temporarily reduce GDP in a year, but it might rebound in future years,” he said.
The study’s methods and data, Schlenker said, offered certainty that “is only slightly higher than a coin toss.”
Diffenbaugh said that, even when accounting for economies that rebound in years following an abnormally warm year, the study found a 66 percent probability that global warming has increased country-level inequality globally. “That is statistically quite different from the flip of a coin that comes up half heads and half tails,” he said.
veryGood! (4856)
Related
- Shocked South Carolina woman walks into bathroom only to find python behind toilet
- ‘Naked Gun’ reboot set for 2025, with Liam Neeson to star
- How to watch the 2024 Oscars: A full rundown on nominations, host and how to tune in
- Why Josh Brolin Regrets S--tting on This Movie He Did
- PSA: Coach Outlet Has Stocking Stuffers, Gifts Under $100 & More for the Holidays RN (up to 60% Off)
- Rock legend Rod Stewart on recording some oldies-but-goodies
- 2 buses collide head-on in western Honduras, killing 17 people and injuring 14
- Caitlin Clark’s 33-point game moves her past Lynette Woodard for the major college scoring record
- Justice Department says jail conditions in Georgia’s Fulton County violate detainee rights
- Get a $1,071 HP Laptop for $399, 59% off Free People, 72% off Kate Spade & More Leap Day Deals
Ranking
- Disney x Lululemon Limited-Edition Collection: Shop Before It Sells Out
- Trump immunity claim taken up by Supreme Court, keeping D.C. 2020 election trial paused
- A billionaire-backed campaign for a new California city is off to a bumpy start
- Wife of ex-Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield dies of cancer, less than 5 months after husband
- What Happened to Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone Character? John Dutton’s Fate Revealed
- Are you eligible for Walmart's weighted groceries $45 million settlement? What to know
- Missing teen with autism found in New Mexico, about 200 miles away from his Arizona home
- Flames menace multiple towns as wildfire grows into one of the largest in Texas history
Recommendation
-
Falling scaffolding plank narrowly misses pedestrians at Boston’s South Station
-
Caleb Williams said he would be 'excited' to be drafted by Bears or Commanders
-
Will NFL running backs get stiff-armed in free agency again? Ominous signs for big names
-
Texas fires map: Track wildfires as Smokehouse Creek blaze engulfs 500,000 acres
-
AIT Community Introduce
-
Congressional leaders strike deal on government funding as shutdown looms
-
This ‘Love is Blind’ contestant's shocked reaction to his fiancée went viral. Can attraction grow?
-
Social media influencer says Dolphins’ Tyreek Hill broke her leg during football drill at his home