Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Summaries
- Chapter 1 Air Pollution: Global Damage Costs from 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 2 Armed Conflicts: The Economic Welfare Costs of Conflict
- Chapter 3 Climate Change: The Economic Impact of Climate Change in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 4 Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Economic Loss of Ecosystem Services from 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 5 Education: The Income and Equity Loss of not Having a Faster Rate of Human Capital Accumulation
- Chapter 6 Gender Inequality: A Key Global Challenge – Reducing Losses due to Gender Inequality
- Chapter 7 Human Health: The Twentieth-Century Transformation of Human Health – Its Magnitude and Value
- Chapter 8 Malnutrition: Global Economic Losses Attributable to Malnutrition 1900–2000 and Projections to 2050
- Chapter 9 Trade Barriers: Costing Global Trade Barriers, 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 10 Water and Sanitation: Economic Losses from Poor Water and Sanitation – Past, Present, and Future
- Index
- References
Chapter 3 - Climate Change: The Economic Impact of Climate Change in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- List of Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Summaries
- Chapter 1 Air Pollution: Global Damage Costs from 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 2 Armed Conflicts: The Economic Welfare Costs of Conflict
- Chapter 3 Climate Change: The Economic Impact of Climate Change in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Chapter 4 Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Economic Loss of Ecosystem Services from 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 5 Education: The Income and Equity Loss of not Having a Faster Rate of Human Capital Accumulation
- Chapter 6 Gender Inequality: A Key Global Challenge – Reducing Losses due to Gender Inequality
- Chapter 7 Human Health: The Twentieth-Century Transformation of Human Health – Its Magnitude and Value
- Chapter 8 Malnutrition: Global Economic Losses Attributable to Malnutrition 1900–2000 and Projections to 2050
- Chapter 9 Trade Barriers: Costing Global Trade Barriers, 1900 to 2050
- Chapter 10 Water and Sanitation: Economic Losses from Poor Water and Sanitation – Past, Present, and Future
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
There is a substantial literature about the future impacts of climate change (Nordhaus 1991; Cline 1992b; Fankhauser 1995; Mendelsohn et al. 2000; Tol 2002a); see Tol (2009b) for an overview. Less is known, however, about the impacts of climate change in the past. While there is no immediate policy relevance of estimates of past effects – as liability is yet to be established (Tol and Verheyen 2004) – such estimates would serve to validate models of future impacts – and thus help to improve these models and build confidence. In this chapter, I turn this question on its head. I use a model to backcast past impacts, thus generating hypotheses to be tested against observations.
Unfortunately, there are no direct observations of the economic impact of past climate change. Note that the cause of climate change, past or future, is irrelevant for its impacts. There are, however, some studies that estimate particular aspects of the impact of past climate change, typically focussing on biophysical impacts.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- How Much Have Global Problems Cost the World?A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050, pp. 117 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
References
(2009) Normalised flood losses in Europe: 1970–2006. Natural Hazards and Earth System Science 9: 97–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2008) The non-linear link between electricity consumption and temperature in Europe: a threshold panel approach. Energy Economics 30: 2705–2721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Making sense of long-term changes in malaria. The Lancet 372: 1523–1525.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and (2006) Comparative risk assessment of the burden of disease from climate change. Environmental Health Perspectives 114: 1935–1941.Google ScholarPubMed
, , , and (2006) Declining vulnerability to temperature-related mortality in London over the twentieth century. American Journal of Epidemiology 164: 7–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1998) Evaluation of weather catastrophe data for use in climate change investigations. Climatic Change 38: 435–445.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2003) Shifting economic impacts from weather extremes in the United States: a result of societal changes, not global warming. Natural Hazards 29: 273–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1992) Temporal fluctuations in weather disasters: 1950–1989. Climatic Change 22: 191–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2010) Climate change and highland malaria: fresh air for a hot debate. Quarterly Review of Biology 85: 27–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1992b) The Economics of Global Warming. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics.Google Scholar
(2000) The impacts of weather variations on energy demand and carbon emissions. Resource and Energy Economics 22: 295–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , and (2004) Exploring 30 years of malaria case data in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Part I. The impact of climatic factors. Tropical Medicine and International Health 9: 1247–1257.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , et al. (2010) The impact of heat waves on mortality in nine European cities: Results from the EuroHEAT project. Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source 9, Article 1.Google Scholar
, , , and (2002) Decadal changes in heat-related human mortality in the eastern United States. Climate Research 22: 175–184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , and (2003) Decadal changes in summer mortality in U.S. cities. International Journal of Biometeorology 47: 166–175.Google ScholarPubMed
(1997) Cold exposure and winter mortality from ischaemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, respiratory disease, and all causes in warm and cold regions of Europe. The Lancet, 349: 1341–1346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1994) Protection vs. retreat: the economic costs of sea level rise. Environment and Planning A 27: 299–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (1997) The aggregation of climate change damages: a welfare theoretic approach. Environmental and Resource Economics 10: 249–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , et al. (2010) Climate change and the global malaria recession. Nature 465: 342–345.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and (2006) Trends in energy load demand for Athens, Greece: weather and non-weather related factors. Climate Research 31: 97–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , et al. (2002a) Climate change and the resurgence of malaria in the East African highlands. Nature 415: 905–909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , et al. (2002b) Hot topic or hot air? Climate change and malaria resurgence in East African highlands. Trends in Parasitology 18: 530–534.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , and (2009) Indications for a changing electricity demand pattern: the temperature dependence of electricity demand in the Netherlands. Energy Policy 37: 1542–1551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1998) Residential energy demand and the interaction of price and temperature: British experimental evidence. Energy Economics 20: 157–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2008) Fluctuations of winter wheat yields in relation to length of winter in Sweden 1866 to 2006. Climate Research 36: 241–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , et al. (2005) Trend detection in river flow series:Part I. Annual maximum flow. Hydrological Sciences Journal 50: 79–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2004) Runoff trends in Sweden 1807–2002. Hydrological Sciences Journal 49: 69–84.Google Scholar
and (2004) Possible economic impacts of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation: an application of FUND. Portuguese Economic Journal 3: 99–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2011) The economic impact of a shutdown of the thermohaline circulation: an application of FUND. Climatic Change 104: 287–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1999) Streamflow trends in the United States. Geophysical Research Letters 26: 227–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2007) Global diarrhoea morbidity, weather and climate. Climate Research 34: 119–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2003) Climate and management contributions to recent trends in U.S. agricultural yields. Science 299: 1032.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and (2007) Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming. Environmental Research Letters 2, Article 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , et al. (2005) Analysis of wheat yield and climatic trends in Mexico. Field Crops Research 94: 250–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2011) Climate trends and global crop production since 1980. Science 333: 616–620.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1994) Climatic warming and increased malaria incidence in Rwanda. The Lancet, 343: 714–718.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , , and (2006) Food for thought: lower-than-expected crop yield stimulation with rising CO2 concentrations. Science 312: 1918–1921.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1998) Climate change, thermal stress and mortality changes. Social Science and Medicine 46: 331–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
and (2010) Climate change: heat, health, and longer horizons. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 107: 9483–9484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , and (2000) Country-specific market impacts of climate change. Climatic Change 45: 553–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2005) Modelling the non-linear response of Spanish electricity demand to temperature variations. Energy Economics 27: 477–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , and (1997) Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991. Nature 386: 698–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2009) Damage costs of climate change through intensification of tropical cyclone activities: an application of FUND. Climate Research 39: 87–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2010) Economic costs of extratropical storms under climate change: an application of FUND. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 53: 371–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2011) Normalizing economic loss from natural disasters: a global analysis. Global Environmental Change 21:. 13–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1997) Increased Australian wheat yield due to recent climate trends. Nature 387: 484–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1991) To slow or not to slow: the economics of the greenhouse effect. Economic Journal 101: 920–937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2002) Temperature and seasonality influences on Spanish electricity load. Energy Economics 24: 55–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2005) Are there trends in hurricane destruction?Nature 438, Article E11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
, , , et al. (2008) Normalized hurricane damage in the United States: 1900–2005. Natural Hazards Review 9: 29–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2011). Emergence timescales for detection of anthropogenic climate change in US tropical cyclone loss data. Environmental Research Letters 6, Article 014003.Google Scholar
and (1997) Sensitivity of electricity and natural gas consumption to climate in the U.S.A.: methodology and results for eight states. Energy 22: 987–998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2003) Climatic suitability for malaria transmission in Africa, 1911–1995. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 100: 15 341–15 345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2005) Trend detection in river flow series: Part II. Flood and low-flow index series. Hydrological Sciences Journal 50: 811–824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , , and (2006) Climate changes and trends in phenology and yields of field crops in China, 1981–2000. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 138: 82–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , and (2008) Climate–crop yield relationships at provincial scales in China and the impacts of recent climate trends. Climate Research 38: 83–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995) The damage costs of climate change toward more comprehensive calculations. Environmental and Resource Economics 5: 353–374.Google Scholar
(2001) Equitable cost–Benefit analysis of climate change. Ecological Economics 36: 71–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2002a) Estimates of the damage costs of climate change: Part I. Benchmark estimates. Environmental and Resource Economics 21: 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2002b) Estimates of the damage costs of climate change: Part II. Dynamic estimates. Environmental and Resource Economics 21: 135–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2002c) Welfare specifications and optimal control of climate change: an application of FUND. Energy Economics 24: 367–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2009a) Climate Feedbacks on the Terrestrial Biosphere and the Economics of Climate Policy: An Application of FUND, Working Paper No. 288. Dublin: Economic and Social Research Institute.Google Scholar
(2009b) The economic effects of climate change. Journal of Economic Perspectives 23: 29–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2004) State responsibility and compensation for climate change damages: a legal and economic assessment. Energy Policy 32: 1109–1130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (1999) The Marginal Costs of Radiatively-Active Gases Working paper No. 99/32. Amsterdam: Institute for Environmental Studies Vrije Universiteit.
and (2007) Economic Development and the Impacts of Natural Disasters. Economics Letters 94: 20–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2009) Climate impacts on net primary productivity trends in natural and managed ecosystems of the central and eastern United States. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 149: 2143–2161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2002) Indicators for social and economic coping capacity: moving towards a working definition of adaptive capacity. Global Environmental Change 12: 25–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , and (2010) Responses of rice yields to recent climate change in China: an empirical assessment based on long-term observations at different spatial scales (1981–2005). Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 150: 1128–1137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 1
- Cited by