Estimating damage costs from global warming (climate change) is difficult. Estimated $ values cover a wide spectrum, depending on many assumptions, as well as on which effects are examined, over how long, for which geographical area, compounded by further uncertainties about how much carbon humans will emit how fast, positive feedbacks (e.g., less reflected sunlight when ice melts, more carbon emitted by thawing permafrost), and - most of all - what the warming effects will be for how much emissions, with what kind of lags in warming. Assumptions about adaptation by farmers are a key factor. Perhaps the most important assumption is the discount rate.
Microwave Oven Rule Shows Obama’s Climate Policies 0613.rtf
Social Cost of Carbon study is available on Overviews page. ($2007 per ton of CO2 emitted)
2013 Edition
2010 Edition
Cost of Disasters, 2012 Back to 1970 - Swiss Re 0413.pdf 44 pp
The losses add up to about $60 billion in insured US disaster losses in 2012. Corn Belt Drought losses not all tallied yet
2012 Insured losses were $US 77 billion, 3rd behind 2011 ($126 B) and 2005 (> $100 B).
2012 Insured losses were $US 77 billion, 3rd behind 2011 ($126 B) and 2005 (> $100 B)
DARA’s estimated worldwide damages from climate change are in bilions of US $. World total is $4.345 trillion in 2030.
Circled figures below 2010 and 2030, from left to right, are for Developing Countries Low Emitters, Developing High Emitters, Developed, and Other Industrialized.
Climate Change to Cost 19% of GDP by 2030 0909.pdf - 164 pp
Emphasizes adaptation costs. One of many examples is below.
US Damages to Cost Over $1.9 Trillion a Year by 2100 - Ackerman & Stanton (NRDC) 0508 - 42 pp
Water costs (esp. for agriculture and esp. in the West, mostly for desalination and recycling water) cope with drought and groundwater depletion. Real estate losses are from sea level rise (45 inches by 2100). Energy costs include increased cooling requirements, higher transmission thermal losses, and curtailed power production due to heat & drought. Other impacts (food losses, health, etc.) not included.
$74 T Cost of Climate Inaction 0905.pdf - 88 pp, modeling by Chris Hope
Estimated costs are based on FUND and PAGE Monte Carlo simulations. Such simulations use many scenarios, based on multiple values (usually 2-5) for each of several (usually 5-20) key inputs.
A2 scenario, below, is "Business as Usual".
William R. Cline’s 1992 estimate of damages in the US alone (his Table 3.4) from many of the same categories addressed by DARA, Ackerman & Stanton, and others. (from The Economics of Global Warming. Institute for International Economics, Washington DC, June 1992. ISBN 0-88132-150-8)
Note that the estimate is just for the US, not the world, as the DARA, Watkiss and "Climate Change to Cost 19% of World GDP by 2030 - 0909" estimates are. Cline’s estimate is more comparable to Ackerman and Stanton’s - also for the US, but in 1990$ instead of 2006$.
Cline’s estimated $61 billion in damages for 2.5°C warming may correspond to somewhere between the 2050 and 2075 damage estimates from Ackerman and Stanton. Thus, Cline's are a good bit lower, even though A & S examined only 4 sectors. Cline’s estimate for those 4 sectors alone was about $60 billion in 2006$. In retrospect, given the costs of recent US drought and hurricane damages, Cline’s estimates seem low.
Section Map: Costs, Wars, Migrate +