by Dana Nuccitelli
“Climate damages are always going to be underestimated,” said Columbia climate economist Gernot Wagner in a phone interview. “Some things we just can’t quantify. For most of those uncertain climate damages, we have precisely and incorrectly estimated their cost at zero.”
Just how expansive and expensive will these climate damages be?
Estimates of the effects of these economic climate impacts vary greatly. A working paper led by the University of California at Davis and recent Council of Economic Advisers climate economist Frances Moore suggests that the persistence of climate damages and their impact on economic growth is one of the most important factors.“It’s clear that any negative effects of higher temperatures on growth, compounded over long periods of time implied by climate change, add up to very large numbers and are essential to account for in any analysis of the benefits of climate policy,” Moore wrote via email.
Quoted in: “How much will climate change drag down the economy?” by Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections (1 July 2024).