A recent analysis from the University of Delaware highlights the significant economic toll of human-caused climate change, indicating that it has taken 6.3 percent of global economic production in the last year.
The impact was especially severe on developing countries, with ramifications reaching beyond immediate climate-related implications to include global trade and investments.
Climate change's economic consequences include interruptions in agriculture and industries, as well as decreased production owing to excessive heat. According to lead author James Rising, disadvantaged countries bear a disproportionate share of the weight of these losses, leaving the world "trillions of dollars poorer" overall.
When global GDP loss is calculated without accounting for individual contributions, the total is 1.8 percent, or nearly $1.5 trillion in 2022. This mismatch is particularly pronounced in low-income countries and tropical regions, where populations are larger but GDP is lower.
According to the report, the least developed countries lost 8.3 percent of their population-weighted GDP. Southeast Asia and Southern Africa experienced the worst of the damage, with losses of 14.1 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively. Certain industrialized countries, on the other hand, had a net increase in GDP as a result of milder winters. This advantage, however, is precarious, since the paper warns that hotter summers could erase these advantages.
The conclusions of the paper highlight the critical need for assistance, particularly in vulnerable countries. While the COP27 established a fund to mitigate climate-related loss and damage, the upcoming COP28 talks in Dubai will be key in selecting contributions to this fund. According to the research, the losses indicated, totaling $21 trillion over the last 30 years, are conservative estimates because non-market losses and consequences were not fully incorporated in the analysis.
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Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous master, it was rightly said. Electronic devices have grown into an inevitable part of our daily lives.
