How is climate change affecting the

economy and society?

#society #climate change #economy

Not only is it a serious threat to the planet and to people, climate change is
also threatening the global economy. This problem needs public-private
sector collaboration to change the way we produce goods to other methods
that guarantee and drive the development of sustainable economic growth.

Climate change is now considered one of the greatest threats to economic stability.

As well as its serious impact on the environment and people, climate change is one of the
biggest threats to economic stability. Heatwaves make us less able to work and reduce
productivity. Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons devastate millions of people, leaving them in
absolute poverty after ruthlessly sweeping away their communities. Droughts shrink harvests,
further complicating the arduous task of feeding the world population, which is expected to
reach 10 billion by 2050 (World Population Prospects 2019, United Nations Organisation). The
World Bank is warning: if we don't do something immediately, climate change could push 100
million more people into poverty by 2030.

The social and economic impact of climate change.

  SEE INFOGRAPHIC: The social and economic impact of climate change [PDF]External
link, opens in new window.

THE STERN REPORT AND THE NORDHAUS MODEL

Considered until not long ago something that didn't affect us, the health of the environment
takes centre stage in the models of today's economists.

In 2006, the British government was the first to commission an economist to draft a report on the
climate. It chose the World Bank's former chief economist, Nicholas Stern, and the result was a
700-page document that has become a reference on the subject. Stern confirmed
that “greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest mistake that the world market has ever
seen”. In short, the main conclusion of the Stern Report is that we need to invest the equivalent
of 2% of global GDP to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Meanwhile, American economist William D. Nordhaus received the Nobel Prize for Economics
in 2018 with Paul Romer for integrating climate change into long-term macroeconomic analysis.
Nordhaus was the first economist to develop a quantitative model that reproduces the
interaction between economic development and climate change on a global scale. According
to Nordhaus, the solution to climate change is to apply prices that will act as a deterrent to using
fossil fuels, because the current price is too low and does not foster the search for alternatives
like renewable energies.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HALT CLIMATE CHANGE AND BOOST THE ECONOMY?

Despite the initial reticence of the business community, an increasing number of studies and
activities show that measures aimed at dealing with global climate change are a golden
opportunity for ensuring sustainable development and driving economic growth. As
explained by the World Commission on the Economy and Climate in a report at the end of 2018,
adopting ambitious climate measures may generate profits of USD$26 billion by 2030, creating
65 million new jobs with low carbon emissions.

According to this report, to build a more resilient, beneficial growth model for people we must
accelerate structural transformation in five key economic sectors:

  Clean energy systems

Decarbonisation of the energy system coupled with decentralised, digitised electrification

technologies could give a billion more people access to modern energy services.
   Smarter urban developments

More compact, connected and coordinated cities would save US$ 17 billion by 2050 and
stimulate economic growth by improving access to work and housing.

  Sustainable land use

A switch to more sustainable farming methods combined with strict forestry protection could
generate economic benefits of around 2 billion dollars per year.

  Smart water management

In areas with a water shortage, GNP could fall by up to 6% in 2050. This could be prevented by
making more efficient use of water through technological improvements and investment in
public infrastructure.

  Circular industrial economy

Today, 95% of the value of the material from plastic packaging - up to 120 billion dollars a year
- is lost after the first use. Policies that encourage more circular and efficient use of materials
could improve global economic activity and reduce waste and pollution.

At the same time, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate is urging public and
private sector leaders to take these urgent measures in the next two or three years: put a price
on carbon and force companies to disclose climate-related financial risks, speed up investment
in sustainable infrastructure, harness the power of the private sector, boosting innovation and
increasing the transparency of the value chain, and adopt a people-centric focus to ensure
equitable growth and a fair transition.

The United Nations Organisation (UNO) says that it is not too late to turn around climate change
and minimise its terrible effects. The truth is that humankind has the organisational and
technological capacity to counteract and solve all the problems and damage we have done to the

planet, and repair the harm caused to nature External link, opens in new window..
What is climate change? A really simple guide
Published
 18 November 2020

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 Our Planet Now

media captionWhat is climate change?

While Covid-19 has shaken much of human society, the threat posed by global warming
has not gone away.
Human activities have increased carbon dioxide emissions, driving up temperatures.
Extreme weather and melting polar ice are among the possible effects.
What is climate change?
The Earth's average temperature is about 15C but has been much higher and lower in
the past.
There are natural fluctuations in the climate but scientists say temperatures are now
rising faster than at many other times.
This is linked to the greenhouse effect, which describes how the Earth's atmosphere
traps some of the Sun's energy.
Solar energy radiating back to space from the Earth's surface is absorbed by
greenhouse gases and re-emitted in all directions.
This heats both the lower atmosphere and the surface of the planet. Without this effect,
the Earth would be about 30C colder and hostile to life.

Scientists believe we are adding to the natural greenhouse effect, with gases released
from industry and agriculture trapping more energy and increasing the temperature.
This is known as climate change or global warming.
What are greenhouse gases?
The greenhouse gas with the greatest impact on warming is water vapour. But it
remains in the atmosphere for only a few days.
Carbon dioxide (CO2), however, persists for much longer. It would take hundreds of
years for a return to pre-industrial levels and only so much can be soaked up by natural
reservoirs such as the oceans.
 Most man-made emissions of CO2 come from burning fossil fuels. When carbon-
absorbing forests are cut down and left to rot, or burned, that stored carbon is released,
contributing to global warming.
 Climate change: Where we are in seven charts
 Five things the 1.5C report taught us

Since the Industrial Revolution began in about 1750, CO2 levels have risen more than
30%. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in at least
800,000 years.
Other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide are also released through
human activities but they are less abundant than carbon dioxide.
What is the evidence for warming?
The world is about one degree Celsius warmer than before widespread industrialisation,
according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
It says the past five years, 2015–2019, were the warmest on record.
Across the globe, the average sea level increased by 3.6mm per year between 2005
and 2015.
Most of this change was because water increases in volume as it heats up.
 However, melting ice is now thought to be the main reason for rising sea levels. Most
glaciers in temperate regions of the world are retreating.
And satellite records show a dramatic decline in Arctic sea-ice since 1979. The
Greenland Ice Sheet has experienced record melting in recent years.
 Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf
Satellite data also shows the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass. A recent study
indicated East Antarctica may also have started to lose mass.
The effects of a changing climate can also be seen in vegetation and land animals.
These include earlier flowering and fruiting times for plants and changes in the
territories of animals.
How much will temperatures rise in future?
The change in the global surface temperature between 1850 and the end of the 21st
Century is likely to exceed 1.5C, most simulations suggest.
The WMO says that if the current warming trend continues, temperatures could rise 3-
5C by the end of this century.
 Temperature rises of 2C had long been regarded as the gateway to dangerous
warming. More recently, scientists and policymakers have argued that limiting
temperature rises to 1.5C is safer.
media captionClimate change: How 1.5C could change the world

An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2018 suggested that

keeping to the 1.5C target would require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented
changes in all aspects of society".
The UN is leading a political effort to stabilise greenhouse-gas emissions. China emits
more CO2 than any other country. It is followed by the US and the European Union
member states, although emissions per person are much greater there.
But even if we now cut greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically, scientists say the
effects will continue. Large bodies of water and ice can take hundreds of years to
respond to changes in temperature. And it takes CO2 decades to be removed from the
atmosphere.
How will climate change affect us?
There is uncertainty about how great the impact of a changing climate will be.
It could cause fresh water shortages, dramatically alter our ability to produce food, and
increase the number of deaths from floods, storms and heatwaves. This is because
climate change is expected to increase the frequency of extreme weather events -
though linking any single event to global warming is complicated.
media captionMatt McGrath explains why we should care about climate change

As the world warms, more water evaporates, leading to more moisture in the air. This
means many areas will experience more intense rainfall - and in some places snowfall.
But the risk of drought in inland areas during hot summers will increase. More flooding
is expected from storms and rising sea levels. But there are likely to be very strong
regional variations in these patterns.
 Vietnam's children and the fear of climate change
 Would you give up beef to help the planet?

Poorer countries, which are least equipped to deal with rapid change, could suffer the
most.
Plant and animal extinctions are predicted as habitats change faster than species can
adapt. And the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the health of millions
could be threatened by increases in malaria, water-borne disease and malnutrition.
media captionHow temperatures have risen since 1884

As more CO2 is released into the atmosphere, uptake of the gas by the oceans
increases, causing the water to become more acidic. This could pose major problems
for coral reefs.
Global warming will cause further changes that are likely to create further heating. This
includes the release of large quantities of methane as permafrost - frozen soil found
mainly at high latitudes - melts.
Responding to climate change will be one of the biggest challenges we face this
century.
 Climate-related words and phrases explained
 How much warmer is your city?
 What is your diet's carbon footprint?
 Where we are in seven charts

What questions do you have about changes in our climate?

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State of the Climate in 2018 shows
accelerating climate change impacts
Tags: 
Climate 
Climate change 
Natural hazards 
Agriculture and food security 
Public health 
Environment 
Oceans
28
Published

28 March 2019
Press Release Number: 
28032019
The physical signs and socio-economic impacts of climate change are accelerating as record
greenhouse gas concentrations drive global temperatures towards increasingly dangerous levels,
according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018, its 25th anniversary edition,
highlights record sea level rise, as well as exceptionally high land and ocean temperatures over
the past four years. This warming trend has lasted since the start of this century and is expected
to continue.
“Since the Statement was first published, climate science has achieved an unprecedented degree
of robustness, providing authoritative evidence of global temperature increase and associated
features such as accelerating sea level rise, shrinking sea ice, glacier retreat and extreme events
such as heat waves,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
These key climate change indicators are becoming more pronounced. Carbon dioxide levels,
which were at 357.0 parts per million when the statement was first published in 1994, keep rising
– to 405.5 parts per million in 2017. For 2018 and 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations are
expected to increase further.
The WMO climate statement includes input from national meteorological and hydrological
services, an extensive community of scientific experts, and United Nations agencies. It details
climate related risks and impacts on human health and welfare, migration and displacement, food
security, the environment and ocean and land-based ecosystems. It also catalogues extreme
weather around the world.
“Extreme weather has continued in the early 2019, most recently with Tropical Cyclone Idai,
which caused devastating floods and tragic loss of life in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
It may turn out to be one of the deadliest weather-related disasters to hit the southern
hemisphere,” said Mr Taalas.
“Idai made landfall over the city of Beira: a rapidly growing, low-lying city on a coastline
vulnerable to storm surges and already facing the consequences of sea level rise. Idai’s victims
personify why we need the global agenda on sustainable development, climate change adaptation
and disaster risk reduction,” said Mr Taalas.
The start of this year has also seen warm record daily winter temperatures in Europe, unusual
cold in North America and searing heatwaves in Australia. Arctic and Antarctic ice extent is yet
again well below average.
According to WMO’s latest Global Seasonal Climate Update (March to May), above average sea
surface temperatures – partly because of a weak strength El Niño in the Pacific – is expected to
lead to above-normal land temperature, particularly in tropical latitudes.
Climate Action Summit
The WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate report will be formally launched at a
joint press conference with UN Secretary General António Guterres, UN General Assembly
President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés and WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas at United
Nations headquarters in New York.  It coincides with a high-level meeting on Climate and
Sustainable Development for All.
“The data released in this report give cause for great concern. The past four years were the
warmest on record, with the global average surface temperature in 2018 approximately 1°C
above the pre-industrial baseline,” Mr Guterres wrote in the report.
“These data confirm the urgency of climate action. This was also emphasized by the recent
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on the impacts of global
warming of 1.5°C. The IPCC found that limiting global warming to 1.5°C will require rapid and
far reaching transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities and that global
net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by
2030, reaching net zero around 2050,” wrote Mr Guterres. 
“There is no longer any time for delay,” said Mr Guterres, who will convene a Climate Action
Summit at Heads of State level on 23rd September 2019. The State of the Climate report will be
one of WMO’s contributions to the Summit. Mr Taalas has been appointed Chair to the
Summit’s Science Advisory Group. 
“It is one of my priorities as the President of the General Assembly to highlight the impacts of
climate change on achieving the sustainable development goals and the need for a holistic
understanding of the socio-economic consequences of increasingly intense extreme weather on
countries around the world. This current WMO report will make an important contribution to our
combined International action to focus attention on this problem,’’ said Ms Espinosa Garcés.

Highlights of the WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2018
Climate impacts (based on input from UN partner agencies)
Hazards: In 2018, most of the natural hazards which affected nearly 62 million people were
associated with extreme weather and climate events. Floods continued to affect the largest
number of people, more than 35 million, according to an analysis of 281 events recorded by the
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) and the UN International
Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Hurricane Florence and Michael were two of fourteen “billion dollar disasters” in 2018 in the
United States of America (USA). They triggered around US$49 billion in damages and over 100
deaths. Super typhoon Mangkhut affected more than 2.4 million people and killed at least 134
people, mainly in the Philippines.
More than 1600 death were associated with intense heat waves and wildfires in Europe, Japan
and USA, where they were associated with record economic damages of nearly US$24 billion in
USA. The Indian state of Kerala suffered the heaviest rainfall and worst flooding in nearly a
century.
Food security: Exposure of the agriculture sector to climate extremes is threatening to reverse
gains made in ending malnutrition. New evidence shows a continuing rise in world hunger after a
prolonged decline, according to data compiled by United Nations agencies including the Food
and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme. In 2017, the number of
undernourished people was estimated to have increased to 821 million, partly due to severe
droughts associated with the strong El Niño of 2015–2016.
Displacement:  Out of the 17.7 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) tracked by the
International Organization for Migration, over 2 million people were displaced due to disasters
linked to weather and climate events as of September 2018. Drought, floods and storms
(including hurricanes and cyclones) are the events that have led to the most disaster-induced
displacement in 2018. In all cases, the displaced populations have protection needs and
vulnerabilities.
According to UNHCR’s Protection and Return Monitoring Network, some 883 000 new internal
displacements were recorded between January and December 2018, of which 32% were
associated with  flooding and 29% with drought. 
Heat, Air Quality and Health: There are many interconnections between climate and air
quality, which are being exacerbated by climate change. Between 2000 and 2016, the number of
people exposed to heatwaves was estimated to have increased by around 125 million persons, as
the average length of individual heatwaves was 0.37 days longer, compared to the period
between 1986 and 2008, according to the World Health Organization. These trends raise alarm
bells for the public health community as extreme temperature events are expected to be further
increasing in their intensity, frequency and duration.
Environmental Impacts include coral bleaching and reduced levels of oxygen in the oceans.
Others include loss of “Blue Carbon” associated with coastal ecosystems such as mangroves,
seagrasses and salt marshes; and ecosystems across a range of landscapes. Global warming is
expected to contribute to the observed decrease of oxygen in the open and coastal oceans,
including estuaries and semi-enclosed seas. Since the middle of the last century, there has been
an estimated 1-2 % decrease in the global ocean oxygen inventory, according to UNESCO’s
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC).
Climate change has emerged as a significant threat to peatland ecosystems, because it
exacerbates the effects of drainage and increases fire risk, according to UN-Environment. 
Peatlands are important to human societies around the world. They contribute significantly to
climate change mitigation and adaptation through carbon sequestration and storage, biodiversity
conservation, water regime and quality regulation, and the provision of other ecosystem services
that support livelihoods. 
Climate indicators
Ocean heat: 2018 saw new records for ocean heat content in the upper 700 metres (data record
started in  from 1955) and upper 2000m (data record started in  2005), topping the previous
record set in 2017. More than 90% of the energy trapped by greenhouse gases goes into the
oceans and ocean heat content provides a direct measure of this energy accumulation in the
upper layers of the ocean.
Sea level: Sea level continues to rise at an accelerated rate.  Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) for
2018 was around 3.7 millimetres higher than in 2017 and the highest on record. Over the period
January 1993 to December 2018, the average rate of rise is 3.15 ± 0.3 mm yr-1 while the
estimated acceleration is 0.1 mm yr-2. Increasing ice mass loss from the ice sheets is the main
cause of the GMSL acceleration as revealed by satellite altimetry, according to the World
Climate Research Programme global sea level budget group, 2018.
Ocean acidification: In the past decade, the oceans absorbed around 30% of anthropogenic CO2
emissions. Absorbed CO2 reacts with seawater and changes the pH of the ocean. This process is
known as ocean acidification, which can affect the ability of marine organisms such as molluscs
and reef-building corals, to build and maintain shells and skeletal material. Observations in the
open-ocean over the last 30 years have shown a clear trend of decreasing pH. In line with
previous reports and projections, ocean acidification is ongoing and the global pH levels
continue to decrease, according to UNESCO-IOC.
Sea ice: Arctic sea-ice extent was well below average throughout 2018 and was at record-low
levels for the first two months of the year. The annual maximum occurred in mid-March and was
the third lowest March extent in the 1979-2018 satellite record. The September monthly sea ice
extent was the sixth smallest September extent on record. The 12 smallest September extents
have all occurred since 2007. At the end of 2018, the daily ice extent was near record low levels.
The Antarctic sea ice extent reached its annual maximum in late-September and early-October.
After the maximum extent in early spring, Antarctic sea ice declined at a rapid rate with the
monthly extents ranking among the five smallest for each month through the end of 2018.
The Greenland ice sheet has been losing ice mass nearly every year over the past two decades.
The surface mass budget (SMB)  saw an increase due to above-average snowfall, particularly in
eastern Greenland, and a near-average melt season. This led to a gain in overall SMB, but had
little impact on the trend over the past two decades with the Greenland ice sheet having lost
approximately 3,600 gigatons of ice mass since 2002. A recent study also examined ice cores
taken from Greenland, which captured melting events back to the mid 1500s. The study
determined that the recent level of melt events across the Greenland ice sheet have not occurred
in at least the past 500 years.
Glacier Retreat: The World Glacier Monitoring Service monitors glacier mass balance using a
set of global reference glaciers with more than 30 years of observations between 1950 and 2018.
They cover 19 mountain regions. Preliminary results for 2018, based on a subset of glaciers,
indicate that the hydrological year 2017/18 was the 31st consecutive year of negative mass
balance.
Notes for Editors:
Information used in this report is sourced from a large number of National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and associated institutions, as well as Regional Climate Centres, the World Climate Research
Programme (WCRP), the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) and Global Cryosphere Watch. Information has also been supplied by a number of other United Nations agencies, including the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO), UN Environment and the UN International Strategy on Disaster Reduction.

WMO uses, for tracking global temperature changes, datasets (based on monthly climatological data from observing sites) from the  United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,  NASA’s Goddard
Institute for Space Studies,  and the  United Kingdom’s Met Office Hadley Centre  and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the United Kingdom.

It also uses reanalysis datasets from  the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and its Copernicus Climate Change Service, and  the Japan Meteorological Agency.  This method combines millions of

meteorological and marine observations, including from satellites, with models to produce a complete reanalysis of the atmosphere. The combination of observations with models makes it possible to estimate temperatures at
any time and in any place across the globe, even in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions.

Story map featuring the Climate statement

Weather and Climate events 2018 interactive map

See also:  Table_Key_Climate_Indicators

 
For further information contact: Clare Nullis, media officer. Email [email protected]. Cell + 41
79 709