From crop damage to cooling failures at cloud-based data centers, climate change affects a wide variety of economic sectors. It’s unclear whether a country’s economy can bounce back each year from these impacts or if global temperature increases cause permanent and cumulative impacts on the market economy.
A study from the University of California, Davis, published today by IOP Publishing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, addresses this fundamental question, which underlies the costs and benefits of climate change policy. The research uses an empirical approach to revisit the effect of rising global temperatures and climate change on gross domestic product, or GDP.
The study found that economies are sensitive to persistent temperature shocks over at least a 10-year time frame. It also found that climate change impacts economic growth in about 22% percent of the countries analyzed.
Read more at: University of California - Davis
UC Davis scientist Berardo Bastien-Olvera in the UC Davis Arboretum (Photo Credit: Brian GG)