S5 : Impacts on economic and social systems

624

Island nations and coastal cities face inundation due to rising sea levels. Pal and Eltahir (2015) predicted that, by the end of this century, areas of the Persian Gulf could be hit by severe waves of heat and humidity that would be “intolerable to humans.” The global volume of weather-related insurance losses has more than tripled since the 1980s. A 2016 World Bank report predicted that more than 100 million people could be driven into extreme poverty by 2030, unless actions are taken to protect the world’s poor from climate change catastrophes such as crop failures, natural disasters, and waterborne diseases.

1043

Climate change inflicts huge costs and suffering, as crops fail, homes are washed away, tropical diseases spread, animal species are lost, and areas become uninhabitable. A recent estimate put the cost of unmitigated climate change at 20% of world gross domestic product by 2100.

695

The concern that if GHG emissions continue at current rates, the atmospheric stock of GHGs will eventually become large enough to cause substantial temperature increases—which, in turn, could have adverse effects on [...] living conditions.

381

Climate change is an example of environmental damage that is imposing economic costs on people in many countries, such as the damages from hurricanes.

392

Other travel cost models have been used to explore […] how climate change will impact recreational benefits in Europe.

425

Climate change has significant economic costs. According to the OECD, the economic damages from climate change are estimated to be between 1.0 percent and 3.3 percent of world economic output by 2060, rising to between 2 percent and 10 percent of global output by 2100. Other research suggests the damages will be even larger—around 10 percent of global output by as soon as 2050 according to the United Nations. But the negative consequences of climate change are already occurring. According to a 2017 report, the damages from climate change are already currently averaging $240 billion per year in the United States, effectively offsetting about 40 percent of the economic growth in the United States.

[...]

Another study estimated that 400,000 deaths in 2010 were attributable to climate change, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease, with over 80 percent of those deaths in developing countries.

427

Warming above 4 degrees Celsius is considered particularly dangerous to poorer nations, with the IPCC estimating that this would result in a high risk of reduction in fresh water availability and food supplies, along with a spread in diseases and an increase in heat-related mortality.

428

The Stern Review estimated that if humanity continues “business as usual,” the costs of climate change in the twenty-first century would reach at least 5 percent of global GDP and could be as high as 20 percent.

445

Rising sea levels could cause the flooding of many low-lying areas; New Orleans and southern Florida, in the United States, and Bangladesh are well-known examples, but many other cities worldwide are also in low-lying areas close to oceans. Some island countries are already losing significant land mass.

164

Such an increase in temperature could lead to significant changes in climate […] which could result in flooding in coastal areas

757

Human lives also are affected as ocean levels rise. Studies reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predict that global sea levels will rise between 10 and 32 inches by the end of the century, highlighting the important idea that actions taken today, both positive and negative, will affect future generations.

802

The IPCC summarizes the consequences of climate change by listing five key "reasons for concern" as follows:
2. Extreme weather events: An increase in heat waves, heavy precipitation, and coastal flooding leads to major economic costs due to natural disasters and reductions in agricultural yields.
4. Global aggregate impacts: Extensive biodiversity loss affects the global economy.
5. Large-scale singular events: Melting ice sheets will lead to rising sea levels, causing significant loss of coastal lands.

203

Point 1 reminds us that carbon released into the atmosphere contributes to climate change and thus imposes an eventual cost on bystanders.

359

The global nature of the problem, coupled with the fact that warming will hurt some countries—those with big coastlines and warm current temperatures—more than others makes finding a solution to this issue especially hard.

6-7

The likely consequences of global warming are far-reaching: melting of the polar ice caps, rising sea levels that may put large coastal areas under water, and potential changes in climate and rain patterns that may make some densely populated parts of the world uninhabitable and destroy the world’s food-growing areas.

344

There is broad scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels […] lead to climate change, which, in turn, imposes high human, economic, and environmental costs.

309

Un réchauffement substantiel serait catastrophique […] et rendant des parties du monde inhabitables.

54

Chaque tonne de carbone émise par l'humanité contribue au réchauffement climatique et se traduit par un coût futur (montée du niveau des mers, baisse du rendement agricole, catastrophes naturelles), qui pourrait creuser la régression à prévoir. Les sentiers actuels de la croissance économique pourraient ainsi mener à une paupérisation de l'humanité à long terme.

146

Autant de phénomènes ravageurs pour la faune et la flore, pénalisant l'agriculture, meurtrissant les populations et à l'origine des « exilés climatiques ».

472

Enfin, les déplacés climatiques résultent d'une vulnérabilité environnementale accrue en particulier dans les zones équatoriales, plus touchées par les événements climatiques extrêmes: Afrique subsaharienne, Asie du Sud et Amérique Latine. La Banque mondiale, dans le rapport intitulé Groundswell: Se préparer aux migrations climatiques internes (2018) estime que d'ici à 2050, 140 millions de personnes pourraient être contraintes de se déplacer.

481

Il souligne que « Le changement climatique menace les éléments de base de la vie pour des pans entiers de populations autour du globe à savoir, l'accès à l'eau, la production de vivres, la santé et l'utilisation des sols ainsi que l'environnement » et que «toute inaction (business-as-usual) face aux émissions entraînerait des risques croissants d'effets graves et irréversibles dus au changement climatique » (Stern, 2006).