Climate Change Expected to Give Rise to Major Economic Challenges as the Century Progresses

Climate will potentially cause major shifts in the global economy if the world continues with its current “business-as-usual” approach to manufacturing and trade policies, according to reports from this year’s Conference on Climate Change, Trade, and Competitiveness held by the World Trade Organization.

Image courtesy of the phoenixprojectfoundation.us.

The major areas expected to be effected, include:

• Rises in sea levels.
• Water availability.
• Agricultural outputs.
• Tourist travel.
• Energy demands.

The rise in mean temperature of 2.3º C could induce an overall economic decline of 1.8 percent, translating into a loss of some $2.4 trillion by the year 2050, according to calculations from the conference report - Climate, Trade, and Development.

The predictive model also expects that, “Overall the developing countries would bear the brunt of the negative impacts with an average net loss of 3.7 percent in 2050. Russia would be the only developing region (of the model) with positive gains. The high-income countries on average would see little loss, if any, though there are regional variations as well among them.”

Part of the forecasted economic impacts are attributed to changes in sea levels and water distributions. Among the projected effects, a significant portion of the loss in Southeast Asia would be related to sea-level rise as well as loss in tourism revenues, according to the report.

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