DANGEROUS INTERFERENCE WITH THE CLIMATE SYSTEM: AN ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT

Richard Tol

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: This paper combines uncertainty about the impact of climate change on human welfare with the distribution of impacts over space and time. The best guess of world average impacts shows a relatively small impact, but with an uncertainty is large and skewed towards negative surprises. Poorer countries are more vulnerable to climate change. There is a 1% chance of a total loss in some countries at warming above 3°C. Generally, economic growth would reduce vulnerability, but this may not be true for the tail of the distribution for warming above 3°C. Thus, 3°C global warming appears as a critical threshold above which climate change is dangerous.

Keywords: climate; change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:10016

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