Essay by Eric Worrall
Perhaps because there is no damage?
Climate Change Is Affecting the Economy. But Proving So Is a Challenge.
Several studies have attempted to model the effects of climate change on the economy, with varying results. But one fact remains certain: The costs of climate change will hit emerging markets and developing countries the hardest.
Article by Alice C. Hill and Priyanka Mahat
May 13, 2025 3:01 pm (EST)Alice Hill is the David M. Rubenstein senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. Priyanka Mahat is a research associate for climate change policy.
Estimating the economic damage from worsening weather extremes is wickedly hard. By comparison, assessing the price of cutting the pollution that causes climate change is “simple stuff” [PDF], according to William Nordhaus, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his climate modeling. The challenge of modelling climate loss has not kept economists from trying. Their current efforts, however, almost certainly underestimate the costs, even as emerging studies show the price is increasing. With atmospheric carbon likely at its highest level in three million years, it is important to understand the significant limitations of current damage estimates.
…
One thing that models do agree upon is that the costs of climate change will hit emerging markets and developing countries the hardest. In fact, while earlier models simply relied on global averages—largely based on developed country data—to estimate damages, recent studies have used spatially disaggregated regional and developing country data that reveal disproportionately larger losses in poorer countries. Those nations are often in areas already hard hit by climate-worsened extremes, and they lack the economic means to invest in adaptation to lessen the damage.
Current economic models can inform understanding of climate change. The likely failure of those models to appreciate the magnitude of future loss, however, raises the specter of a too narrow focus on the cost of stopping the harmful pollution without properly valuing the catastrophic losses that could lie ahead.
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Read more: https://www.cfr.org/article/climate-change-affecting-economy-proving-so-challenge
Interesting, given the uncertainty, that none of the models suggest climate change will yield a net benefit, given serious studies suggest there will be tangible benefits.
The claim economic models can inform understanding of climate change seems a bit dubious, given the wild variation of estimated damage. Clearly the models are highly sensitive to initial assumptions, which strongly suggests the models are also vulnerable to errors – the slightest mistake in one of those starting assumptions amplifies into wildly varying estimates.
As for the claim developing countries are particularly vulnerable, the solution is simple – help them develop. Not that they need much help, across Africa, South America and Asia, formerly poor nations are throwing off the fog of Western do-gooder lies, and developing their own capitalist economies and fossil fuel resources as fast as they can dig new wells. They’ve seen what we have in the West, and they want some of that rich lifestyle goodness for themselves. Just getting out of their way would help.
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One thing that models do agree upon is that the costs of climate change will hit emerging markets and developing countries the hardest
Now, that is funny. The very idea that models can “predict” anything is laughable – unless your source of income depends upon them.
All tout sheet sellers agree that without purchasing their predictions of future horse races, you will lose all your money.
My Model says those Nations that bet their future on fossil fuels over Net Zero will be leading the pack before 2035.
Instead of modeling the costs of Climate Change why not model the cost of climate Change Indoctrination.
That would be at least two generations indoctrinated in schools, universities etc to promote the climate anxiety thing.
What is that in pounds, shillings and pence?
Biden’s “$4.7 trillion Inflation Reduction Act” and “$3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act” certainly hit emerging markets and developing countries the hardest.
“One thing that models do agree upon is that the costs of
climate changeGREEN ENERGY will hit emerging markets and developing countries the hardest”Fixed it.
They would if they could, but mostly in the models. In real life the emerging developing markets/countries cannot afford this stupidity, and they know it, so they focus on real energy, primarily coal.
It is extremely distressing to make Western leftists doubt their beliefs, so of course anyone they oppose owes them reparations. Simply reminding them their beau ideal, the Soviet Union is defunct will lead to overuse of pharmaceuticals. Telling them NetZero or the Green New Deal are fascist socialisms designed by special ed students will cause untold grief.
Don’t insult special ed students.
Are those the same models that told us that sub-prime mortgages were low risk?
Well, when a thing is not happening it is real hard to prove it is happening because it ain’t happening. Get it?
Extracting the lost opportunity costs from the Trump / Biden Covid spending (CARES act and American Rescue Plan) would be impossible. I suspect most of both plans, in the trillions, were wasted spending. They might not have overtly damaged the economy. I would argue that they probably did little good, and what could have been done for infrastructure, health, defense, etc we’ll never know.
Opportunity costs from trillion dollar spending sprees (including climate change) are incalculable.
In other words, the economy rolled along in spite of what the legislature did.
I agree. We got rolled.
There’s no evidence whatsoever for “worsening weather extremes”. The entire field is based on nonsense.
Yup! Yet they keep goose-stepping to the same tune.
“William Nordhaus, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics for his climate modeling”
An economist does climate modeling? WTF?
Proving that Climate Hysteria is damaging the economy is so easy that a caveman could do it.
Economic projections. Who said that economics was the dismal science? Who said that economists predicted 18 of the last 7 recessions? Who developed the LCOE?
These projections always leave out the real, tangible benefits of climate change. There are two that need to be addressed in any of these discussions:
Yet another example of how pathetic the CAGW clowns are. They are losing, they know it and we know it. They have no proper science to back their claims, all they have is corrupted climate models, pictures of calving glaciers and old sick polar bears. They are pitiful.
No, they also have the MSM that propagandize the CAGW meme. When they allow ‘news’ article comments, they frequently delete them later, without explanation other than the generic “community guidelines,” to eliminate their counter effect.
Something I observed last night was 5 different replies to a comment I made; they all had different names and statistics, but the same picture. The one that seemed most anomalous was one with relatively few comments, but a huge number of ‘Likes.’ Me thinks that the person charged with creating ‘bots made a mistake. Interestingly, this happened a couple of days after I complained to MSN that I had been seeing fewer replies to personal comments than what I had seen in the past.
Despite asking for an explanation for rejection or deletion many times, I have never received a reply. When I have complained about other’s comments that are clearly a violation of the “community guidelines” (such as personal insults or bullying), they have promptly deleted the offending comment with the statement that they will investigate my complaint and get back to me with their decision. They have never gotten back to me as promised. In most cases, the offending comment that I complained about is back within about a half-hour. I don’t think that the MSM is playing on a level field.
Expect the Biden confessional to impact climate science as well. All these “journalists” need to get all these lies off their chests as well as their management is looking at very steep losses. Mann is done for….
And the EU states are starting to change their tune following the Iberian incident!
Let’s hope so!
You’re forgetting about the Eco-Nazi scum that “lead” places like Google and LinkedIn who “demonitise” or block/remove any comments that undermine climate propaganda.
Burning fossil fuels benefits society enormously. No one has ever burned a gallon of gas by accident. This is a humorous video that clearly points out how nonsensical this “science” truly is. Be sure to share this one. https://app.screencast.com/DFd1viHxsRjq7
“Perhaps because there is no damage?”
So close, just on degree of separation away.
Any article what ever it is about needs to list the assumptions and if it relies on assumptions prove those assumptions have some basis of being factual.
For a start the the article by Hill and Mahat makes the assumptions a) that climate change is happening both locally and globally & b) that climate change is harmful everywhere. Neither of the assumptions are correct. For example in my area I have a 132 year record of monthly rainfall. There is no trend. The highest monthly total rainfall was in February 1893 (1384mm). The highest monthly rainfall for the month of May was in 1938 (756mm) and the highest December rainfall was in 2010 (668mm followed by floods in Jan 2011). Rainfall is one side of the classification of climate. Then if an area becomes less dry and more green as evidence from satellites how is that harmful. Similar if an area becomes one degree warmer on average and gets more rainfall so more food can be grown and harvested how is that harmful? The Vikings around 1000-1300 AD were living and growing food in Greenland but now in Greenland food can only be grown in artificial greenhouses. If Greenland (which is less developed) losses more ice how is that harmful for the people living there? What is harmful for less developed nations is anything preventing them to install the most efficient and reliable electricity and anything preventing them growing food and earning money like stealing their oil & gas, their coal, their fish in surrounding oceans , their minerals, their land and limiting their trading.
The climate agriculture studies I’ve looked at all make unrealistic assumptions, such as assuming farmers won’t respond to changed growing conditions. Such studies have a place as a baseline exercise, but inferring we’ll all starve based on such unrealistic studies is utterly absurd.
In my collection of reprints there is one from around the 1980’s that points out the absurdity of assuming that farmers will stay on business as usual management plans under changing conditions.
It was something like this
“Darwin R, 1999. The impacts of global warming on agriculture: A Ricardian analysis:
Comment. American Economic Review 89: 1049–1052.”
Quoted in
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23550305_A_Ricardian_Analysis_of_the_Impact_of_Climate_Change_on_African_Cropland
The models agree that if they don’t find something bad, they won’t get any more money from the authoritarian elite.
What? Proving climate change is easy. Now, catching that leprechaun who lives near my house is hard. I swear I almost had him last time.
On days when the ancient Greek Chimera was running loose in the agora, people stayed home. The economic effect must have been considerable.
There are no “worsening extremes.”
“Climate change is NOT a ” serious problem.” It’s not even a non-sdrious problem.
And the notion that “higher temperatures” is connected to “more damage” is 180 degrees wrong.
What a pile of steaming manure.