Top left: Flooding in Scotland on Oct. 20, top right: Highland Fire in California on Oct. 30. Bottom left: Destruction on Oct. 26 after Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico. Bottom right: Flooded houses in Vietnam on Oct. 31, 2023.
Unfortunately, the politics of green government spending aren’t exactly having a banner year. European parliamentary elections hit green parties particularly hard, the U.K.’s Labour Party has scaled back its climate plans, and the deeply climate-unfriendly Donald Trump stands a real chance of winning a return to the White House in November.
It’s matching that pace so far this year, even before what will probably be an active Atlantic hurricane season, turbocharged by sauna-like ocean water and the La Niña weather pattern. Adjusted for inflation, the U.S. has averaged 20 such disasters per year over the past five years, compared with an average of just three per year in the 1980s.
Hotter weather also saps worker productivity and cognitive development in children. Throw that in with all the other climate-fueled nightmares, and economic activity will suffer. A heating planet could leave global GDP 20% lower by mid-century, according to one study. It might already have shaved 37% off GDP since 1970, according to a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study.
“Pandemics, climate change and public debt dynamics are all subject to amplifying feedback mechanisms and tipping points that can result in spiraling and irreversible costs that put a premium on acting early,” the OBR wrote. “In making the transition to net zero, delaying decisive action to tackle carbon emissions by 10 years could double the overall cost.”