From the European Commission Joint Research Centre
New study quantifies the effects of climate change in Europe
If no further action is taken and global temperature increases by 3.5°C, climate damages in the EU could amount to at least €190 billion, a net welfare loss of 1.8% of its current GDP. Several weather-related extremes could roughly double their average frequency. As a consequence, heat-related deaths could reach about 200 000, the cost of river flood damages could exceed €10 billion and 8000 km2 of forest could burn in southern Europe. The number of people affected by droughts could increase by a factor of seven and coastal damage, due to sea-level rise, could more than triple. These economic assessments are based on scenarios where the climate expected by the end of the century (2080s) occurs in the current population and economic landscape.
These are just some of the findings of a new report by the European Commission’s in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre, which has analysed the impacts of climate change in 9 different sectors: agriculture, river floods, coasts, tourism, energy, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure and human health. The report also includes a pilot study on habitat suitability of forest tree species.
Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action said: “No action is clearly the most expensive solution of all. Why pay for the damages when we can invest in reducing our climate impacts and becoming a competitive low-carbon economy? Taking action and taking a decision on the 2030 climate and energy framework in October, will bring us just there and make Europe ready for the fight against climate change.
Expected biophysical impacts (such as agriculture yields, river floods, transport infrastructure losses) have been integrated into an economic model in order to assess the implications in terms of household welfare. Premature mortality accounts for more than half of the overall welfare losses (€120 billion), followed by impacts on coasts (€42 billion) and agriculture (€18 billion).
The results also confirm the geographically unbalanced distribution of climate change related damages. For the purpose of this study, the European Union is divided into 5 regions. What the study identifies as southern Europe and central Europe south (see background for details) would bear most of the burden (- 70%), whereas the northern Europe region would experience the lowest welfare losses (- 1%), followed by the UK and Ireland region (- 5%) and central Europe North (- 24%).
However, the report also shows that welfare impacts in one region would have transboundary effects elsewhere. For example, the welfare loss due to sea level rise in the central Europe North region or to the agricultural losses in southern Europe would have a spill over effect on the whole Europe due to economic interlinkages.
These results relate to no action taken to mitigate global warming. The project also looks at the scenario where strong greenhouse gas reduction policies are implemented and temperature rise is kept below 2 degrees Celsius (the current international target). In this case, impacts of climate change would reduce by €60 billion, a 30% decrease. In addition, some significant biophysical impacts would be substantially reduced: the increased burned area would halve and 23 000 annual heat-related deaths would be spared.
This considered, further effects should be taken into account when assessing the benefits of reducing GHG emissions, not modelled in PESETA II. Firstly, there would be a reduced risk of fundamental impacts due to extremes and abrupt climate change. Secondly, there would be benefits associated with lower EU energy imports, as a 2°C scenario would lead to a substantial reduction in net energy imports in the EU. Thirdly, the additional benefits due to lower air pollution of the 2°C scenario can be also very large. Last but not least, the difference in impacts between the Reference simulation and the 2°C scenario would get bigger as time passes beyond 2100.
If future population and economic growth projections would be taken into account, the negative effects would multiply. The study simulated this for the impacts of river floods and results show that they could multiply tenfold.
Background
The PESETA I (2009) and PESETA II (Projection of Economic impacts of climate change in Sectors of the EU based on bottom-up Analysis) studies investigate the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts across Europe.
The research integrates what is known on climate impacts in the various natural science disciplines into the economic analysis. It takes into consideration current projections on estimated CO2 emissions, the potential range of climate variations (temperature, rain, wind, solar radiation, air humidity) and the biophysical impacts (agriculture yields, river floods, and transport infrastructure losses) to assess the economic burden of potential climate scenarios.
The project covers the climate impacts over the period 2071-2100, compared to 1961-1990 and considers climate impacts in five large EU regions: northern Europe (Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Denmark), UK & Ireland (UK and Ireland), central Europe North (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and Poland), central Europe South (France, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Romania), and southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Bulgaria).
Although the coverage of impacts is broad, it should be stressed that the study underestimates climate damages in Europe for a number of reasons. For instance, the coverage of climate extremes effects is limited; some impacts such as damages to biodiversity or ecosystem losses cannot be monetised and have therefore not be considered when calculating the welfare loss. Last but not least, abrupt climate change or the consequences of passing climate tipping points (such as the Arctic sea-ice melting) are not integrated in the analysis.
Links:
News release: https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/default/files/jrc_20140625_newsrelease_climate-change_en.pdf
Climate Impacts in Europe. The JRC PESETA II project: http://ipts.jrc.ec.europa.eu/publications/pub.cfm?id=7181
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Europe has gone through such climate change before: the
Medieval Warming Period. It peaked with temperatures around
two degrees C or so warmer than now. The times were well
documented.
To see what will really happen should temperatures increase
as charged, all they have to do is consult the historic record.
Sure, the records are a thousand years old, but they are there!
If Dr Brian Fagan can find them and use them in his book “The
Great Warming,” then these so-called researchers should be
able to.
And until they do so consult, or read Fagan’s book, then anything
else is just so much irrelevant gum-bashing drivel.
Europe could avoid an even bigger economic disaster simply by firing every bureaucrat in every EU office.
Speculative drivel. This is climate comedy.
Here is the disaster. It’s funny how tropical plants loved all that extra heat. Animals too apparently.
What are the economic effects of fewer frost days, longer growing seasons, crops growing at higher latitudes and hot weather crops taking their place. What are the social an economic effects of few deaths due to hypothermia, lower heating bills.
I see extreme weather. Why is an economic report telling us about future climate states? I am confused because I thought global warming meant less extreme weather due to the reduced temperature differentials. Here is what I mean.
Great storms of the Little Ice Age
They said that global warming would be felt most at higher latitudes, in winter and at night. Yet 3.5C will devastate Europe by milder winters, fewer lost crops due to frosts etc.
The big question is where are they going to find that 16 W/m^2 forcing and feedback to support a 3.5 deg C rise in T ? That is assuming the net negative feedback doesn’t increase the necessary power to even greater heights. After all, the co2 is only going to provide around 4 W/m^2 and the absolute humidity increase is going to be limited to somewhat less than that. Oh wait a moment, despite the warmists beloved venus with 100% cloud cover, Earth cannot have a cloud cover greater than the current 62% – and warming must reduce the cloud cover, just like cooling reduces the cloud cover. I guess otherwise their research grants get reduced to absolute zero. So more water vapor entering the air and rising to heights where clouds are formed means that we will have less clouds by a substantial amount. How about that – saved their bacon (or pork)
None of these scientifically illiterate watermelon greens even can conceive of the certainty that by 2080 the World will get its electrical and other energy from clean, inexhaustible Fusion energy that powers the stars.
They all sound like the catastrophists that were predicting in 1900, that the horse manure would be 3 feet deep everywhere in New York City, and never seeing the coming of the auto which was then just around the corner.
So-called Green movement groups are now pretty much parasites dealing only in politics and doing nothing of any significance for the environment.
Being paid money to write poorly thought out SF doomsday story plots is not science, not in the public interest, and is not even good SF.
I thought the EU was doing a good job destroying themselves with wanky carbon trading etc.
Let’s see… Man has burned through roughly 50% of the world’s fossil fuel reserves and only managed to increase CO2 levels from 280ppm to 400ppm.
Based on the empirical evidence and the physics, the added 3 watts/M^2 of logarithmic CO2 forcing has perhaps added 0.2C of the 0.75C total global warming experienced since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850…
To get an additional 3.3C of warming by 2100, (3.5C – 0.2C), would require a warming trend of 0.38C/decade, every decade, for the next 8.6 decades….starting from….. tomorrow…
That seems a bit of stretch given the warming trend for the past decade has been -0.038C/decade…. and flat for the past 18 years (RSS data).
On top of that, the PDO entered its 30-yr cool cycle in 2005, and historically (at least for 6 out of 6 PDO cycles since 1850), the PDO has tracked the overall global warming/cooling trends perfectly, including the one we’re in now:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1921/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1880/to:1921/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1921/to:1943/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1921/to:1943/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:1977/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1943/to:1977/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1977/to:2005/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1977/to:2005/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2005/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2005/trend
Soooo, assuming the current decadal trend of -0.038C/decade continues for another 2 decades, that would bring the global temp anomaly down another 0.076C by 2034, which would work out to be: 3.5C – 0.124 (0.2C -0.076C)/66 years (2100 – 2034) =+0.55C/decade trend required for the remaining 6.6 straight decades from 2034 to 2100 to reach this bogus 3.5C BS CO2 Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) projection…
Neither the +0.38C/decade (from now) nor the +0.55C/decade (from around 2034) seems even remotely given the obviously low CO2 sensitivity.
Lindzen Choi et al’s paper suggesting an ECS of roughly 0.5C looks to be by far the best estimate of CO2’s actual forcing effect, which not only isn’t a problem, the 40% increase in crop yields and forest growth from CO2 doubling to 560ppm is a multi-$trillion net benefit for humanity and the Earth’s environment in general.
About the ONLY ploy the CAGW advocates have left is to suddenly adopt the European Space Agency’s claim that atmospheric global temps are *lousy” indicators of CAGW and that “the oceans ate my Gloooooobal Waaaarming” (TM)… Oh, my…
I give this CAGW scam another 5 years of economic destruction before it’s laughed onto to trash heap of failed ideas.
I laughed at that report let me show the cost estimates of tackling climate change where first discussed in 2009 and were put at €100 billion per year of which the Euro was expected to pay around a third. Reference (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/oct/30/eu-climate-change-funding-deal).
Lets say you started next year and could actually stop paying in 2020 although that isn’t clear that you can turn off the payment. That is 5 years at €33 billion which gives you a total spend for Europe of €165 billion to save €190 billion in 2030.
May I be the first to suggest a much easier solution that any accountant would propose set aside €1 billion a year for each of the next 15 years and the cost of both situations is identical at 2030.
I know which I would select but hey in the world of stupidity and politics, common sense never comes into it. Hell you could go all out and set aside €2 billion per year and you are miles in front of either choice and probably gives you some money in the trough for all the corrupt politicians to stick there snouts in.
The EU is crippled already…
”
SAMURAI says:
June 26, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Lindzen Choi et al’s paper suggesting an ECS of roughly 0.5C looks to be by far the best estimate of CO2′s actual forcing effect, which not only isn’t a problem, the 40% increase in crop yields and forest growth from CO2 doubling to 560ppm is a multi-$trillion net benefit for humanity and the Earth’s environment in general.
”
Of course it’s a problem! It’s devastating to the Malthusian left who think they need to exterminate 90% of humanity to protect themselves and their pals from disaster.
“Claim: An increase of 3.5°C will result in crippling the EU”
I’m going to guess that I’m not the first commenter to say its too late, the EU is already crippled. Germany will survive and the UK could if they aren’t totally bent on self destruction as they appear to be. Imagine telling Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland that “you COULD be crippled in the future”. I think it would be interpreted as ‘dead’ from their standpoint! With or without the rise of 3.5C the forecast is valid. With a decline in temperature… let’s not go there.
A note on the crises in Ukraine. Most see the issue as a freedom and self-determination one and of course everyone is jumping all over Russia. In practical terms to be free to become part of a bankrupting EU, surrendering your sovereingty to a Cominterm in Brussels and be under the rules governing marketing and appearance of asparagus (and thousands of other foodstuffs – see the bent banana regulation), decorating your landscape with windmills, opening your doors to massive immigration quotas…… is jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I would advise you to maintain your sovereingty against both sides if you can, but definitely look before you leap to socialist Europe – you only recently escaped that kind of horror.
The main thing crippling the EU is their slavish devotion to the rule book on all things. They are already losing entire industries because of their inflexibility with regard to REACH – the Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals.
Brussels this requires further investigation, please send funds urgently.
Another model, another projected scenario, another “boy cries wolf” moment. They might be able to convince me of the need to do something if they backed off this anal cry of doomsday. CO2 has been higher in the past and the world did not have a runaway thermal meltdown. And you will not convince me that the only carbon dioxide molecule that causes problems are ones that are created by burning petroleum products, either. I think the part that truly irritates me the most – even more than knowing this is all about the rich getting richer and the poor being killed off by starvation and hypothermia – is that they think we are so infantile that they have to drag out the boogie man to scare us. It didn’t work when I was a kid, and it hasn’t worked since. Lay out the pure logic and pathways, and I might get on board, but trying to frighten me with hysterical whining isn’t going to work.
I noted that the recent floods in UK were blamed on a faulty pump station, and those who believe flooding is connected to climate change, should not blame mother nature, but on the bureaucrats that are supposed to be protecting us from extreme weather events, that can be blamed on human error. Like releasing water from the Brisbane dam, without warning people. Same with the Cork dam, that’s not climate change, it is gross negligence. What about volcanic eruptions, I wouldn’t like to live near a volcano, but those in Naples and near Mt.Vesuvius, know that he can erupt again like in AD79. They can’t insure their properties from a volcanic eruption either.
Shows why the EU is well on the way to imploding.
Is it not about time that such studies also examine what climate damages to the EU might be if global temperature decreases by 3.5 degrees centigrade?
philjourdan and Patrick. Perhaps this site might help your debate.
http://theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/328841/why-germanys-nuclear-phase-out-leading-more-coal-burning
@Solomon Green – The disagreement seemed to be between sources, not Patrick and I. Our disagreement was over what would happen if all fossil fuel generation was shut off.
And of course your source gives even a 3rd number (an eyeball guess says about 50/50). Thanks for the link. I guess that is a compromise and I can live with it. 😉
The eu is imploding because greedy bastards are in charge.
Ketch,I agree, who in their right mind who deliberately put their citizens in for an implosion of economies, etc., they can’t be that dumb, but they are or corrupt. Blaming their own lack of management and loss of income on climate change and AGW. An easy excuse isn’t it, when their own incompetence or corruption is the real reason.Maybe the sentiments from WWII are still there, you have the EU with socialist and conservative governments that are now interdependent on one another economically. No wonder the UK would not change to Euros.