Climate change and the economy: an introduction

António Antunes, Bernardino Adão, João Valle e Azevedo, Nuno Lourenço and Miguel Gouveia

Working Papers from Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department

Abstract: This work presents in an accessible way the functioning of the natural climate system and the mechanisms through which global warming occurs. The warming of the Earth’s surface and the evolution of precipitation throughout the 20th century are documented, including for the Portuguese case. The channels of transmission of climate change to the economy are also analysed. The likely impact on the level of global GDP is negative, with a range of estimates very sensitive to the occurrence of phenomena that are difficult to predict. It also discusses economic policy proposals addressing the problem of fossil carbon emissions. Significant carbon taxation will likely have to coexist with the existing carbon emission permit system. The role of central banks in mitigating the effects of excessive CO2 emissions is analysed, highlighting regulatory reporting with a focus on environmental issues and the assumption of concerns related to sustainability and corporate responsibility. Finally, modelbased estimates of economic costs associated to climate change are presented. In this example, we conclude that the adoption of an optimal global policy would save Portugal about 0.5ºC of warming.

JEL-codes: E21 E60 F40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.bportugal.pt/sites/default/files/anexos/papers/op202201_en_0.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ptu:wpaper:o202201

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by DEE-NTD ().