Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.
Estimated health impact of global warming, 2050.
Increased risk from
climate change
Diarrheal
diseases
Nutritional
defi ciencies
Total
Malaria
Disability-adjusted life years lost per 1,000 persons
Africa
14.91
6.99
7.13
0.80
High-income
countries
0.02
0.02
0.00
0.00
Increased risk as
percentage of
baseline mortality
Diarrheal
diseases
Nutritional
defi ciencies
Total
Malaria
Losses from climate change as % of all losses
Africa
2.92
1.37
1.40
0.16
High-income
countries
0.01
0.01
0.00
0.00
the table, I have taken the WHO upper-bound estimate of health impact
so as not to underestimate the impacts. The lower bound is zero impact.
I take the WHO temperature estimate, which is labeled 2050. According
to their estimates, climate change will lead to a total increase of about
15 DALYs lost per 1,000 persons in Africa. Put differently, on average a
person's life will be shortened by 0.015 years, or about 5 days. Diarrheal
diseases and malaria are each about half of the health risks for Africa.
Now look at Africa in the bottom part of Table 3, again in the fi rst row.
This shows the effects of climate change as a percentage of baseline
mortality, or projected deaths in that year. Again, this is shown both for
the total and for the three specifi c important diseases. For Africa, the
total estimated losses from climate change make up almost 3 percent
of the total lost DALYs from all diseases. The estimate of the high-end
impact of climate change is therefore a small increase in health risks
(moreover, remember that the low-end estimate is zero).
Next look at the estimates for developing countries (which include
primarily the United States, western Europe, and Japan). The estimated
health risks here, even in the highest-risk case, are negligible, compris-
