Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
8 Costing climate change
Alan Moran
The IPCC's three voluminous 'Fifth Assessment' Working Group reports and their
slimmed-down Summaries for Policymakers werecompletedin2013and2014.Tocondense
thefindingsofwhatissaidtobetheworkof803authors,theIPCCestimatesthatadoubling
ofatmosphericcarbondioxide(CO 2 )willcausewarmingbetween1.5°Cand4.5°C.Perhaps
in response to seventeen years in which the planet has defied the warming forecasts of
climate models, the lower boundary was reduced in the latest assessment. This did not
however prevent the decibels of commentary about adverse implications being cranked up.
HighlyrespectedclimatescientistsputthelikelywarmingbelowthebottomoftheIPCC
range. Writing in this volume, Richard Lindzen estimates the maximum warming possible
for human induced greenhouse gases is 1°C, while Beenstock, Reingewertz and Paldor find
that the relationship between greenhouse gases and warming is spurious except perhaps in
the short term. 1
Entertainersurgeustoreduceconsumptionofnon-renewableenergyinordertoforestall
adverseeffectsofglobalwarming.Ironicallysomeoftheseexhortershavecarbonfootprints
many times those of common folk—Bono's 2010 world concert tour is estimated to have
generated emissions equivalent to the annual level of 6,500 British people. 2
How much will climate change hurt?
The key questions are, 'How much damage will emanate from the likely atmospheric
doubling of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases?' and, 'What is the cost of measures
to prevent this doubling?' The IPCC puts the qualitative costs of warming in the following
foreboding terms:
• Each degree of warming is projected to decrease renewable water resources by at
least twenty per cent for an additional seven per cent of the global population.
• Climate change is likely to increase the frequency of droughts.
• Heavy rainfalls are likely to become more intense and frequent.
• In response to further warming by 1°C or more by the mid-twenty-first century and
beyond,ocean-widechangesinecosystempropertiesareprojectedtocontinue,with
implications for food security.
• Urban climate change risks, vulnerabilities, and impacts are increasing across the
world in urban centres of all sizes, economic conditions, and site characteristics.
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