Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
12
ADDING UP THE DAMAGES
FROM CLIMATE CHANGE
The last few chapters have taken an extensive look at the major impacts
of climate change. I described this as scientifi c house-to-house combat
because each sector has its own special dynamics and relation to climate
change. Soil moisture is critical to agriculture, sea surface tempera-
ture to hurricanes, atmospheric concentrations of CO
2
for ocean acidifi -
cation, and so on.
But having gone house to house, we can now stand back and look at
the overall picture. What are the overall impacts as best we can judge?
Five overarching themes emerged from our review of impacts, and it is
worth emphasizing them.
• We found that climate damages are closely linked to economics.
They are unintended by-products or externalities resulting from
rapid economic growth. Zero economic growth would greatly re-
duce the threats from warming.
• Additionally, we saw the important distinction between managed
systems (such as the industrial economy) and unmanageable sys-
tems (such as ocean acidifi cation). We emphasized that the major
focus of our concerns should be on those impacts that are unman-
aged or unmanageable.
• We have seen that market economies of high-income countries
are increasingly insulated from the vicissitudes of climate and other
disturbances of nature. This is partly because the nature-based
sectors such as agriculture are shrinking relative to services, and
