Worldwide income will be 19 per cent lower by 2049 than it would have been without global warming, according to a new studyWorldwide income will be 19 per cent lower by 2049 than it would have been without global warming, according to a new study.
The amount of planetary heating already in the pipeline as a result of a century of pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will make global income 19 per cent lower by 2049 than it would have been without global warming, suggests a new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
The study’s damage estimates are much higher than those of previous efforts, a result Dr Kotz chalks up to his group’s methodology, which he described as conservative. Regardless, the direction of travel is clear and consistent. ExxonMobil, for example, has gone from denying that climate change exists to insisting that countries should not risk “energy poverty” by rushing too quickly into renewables. It has argued people won’t accept the “degradation in global standard of living” that it says achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would require.
Some developing countries will still burn a lot of fuel trying to adapt to brutal heat and extreme variability in temperatures and rainfall, Dr Kotz notes. But they would have to run a lot of air-conditioning to make up for a 30 per cent hit to gross domestic product.