Lecture 3 Climate Impact Assessments

Gang He

September 23, 2024

A five points “climate haiku”

  1. It’s warming
  2. It’s us
  3. We’re sure
  4. It’s bad
  5. We can fix it

Source: Kimberly A Nicholas

Adverse impacts of climate change

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 1

The impacts are global

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 2.3.1

Vulnerable population suffers more

Source: IPCC AR6 Synthesis Repoort Figure 2.3.2

Conventional focues

  • Ice melting
  • Sea level rising
  • Extreme weathers
    • Floods
    • Droughts

Damages to include

  • agriculture
  • mortality
  • energy
  • low-risk labor
  • high-risk labor
  • coastal damages
  • property crime
  • violent crime

What other damages to include?

Social economic impacts

Source: Carleton and Hsiang (2016)

Climate damage function

\(Economic\ Damage=f(\Delta temperature)\)

  • It could be negative or positive
  • Integrated Assessment Models/Economic models
    • DICE/RICE
    • FUND
    • PAGE

Read more: Neumann et al. (2020), Valuing Climate Changes: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (2017)

Climate change and conflicts

Read more: Hsiang, Burke, and Miguel (2013)

Climate change affects energy system

Source: Yalew et al. (2020)

Climate impact to renewable supply-demand match

Source: Liu et al. (2023)

NYS climate impacts assessment

  • Up-to-date projections of future climate conditions in New York State
  • Sector-based assessments of climate impacts based on literature
  • In-depth economic impact assessments
  • Adaptation strategies and case studies
  • Links and references to primary sources for full transparency
  • Communication and outreach materials to present information from the assessment

Source: New York State Climate Impacts Assessment

Vulnerable Populations

Other Groups:

  • Immigrant
  • Unhoused and housing-insecure
  • Incarcerated
  • People with disabilities
  • Chindren
  • Older adults (65+)

Source: New York State Climate Impacts Assessment Ch1

The 4th Assessment of the NYC Panel on Climate Change (NPCC4)

  • Updates: Climate Science, Equity, and Flooding
  • New: Futures and Transitions, Energy and Energy Insecurity, and Health.

Source: NPCC4

Fuel for thoughts: grand challenges, huge progress, and grand opportunities

Source: Our World in Data

References

Carleton, Tamma A, and Solomon M Hsiang. 2016. “Social and Economic Impacts of Climate.” Science 353 (6304): aad9837. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad9837.
Hsiang, Solomon M., Marshall Burke, and Edward Miguel. 2013. “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict.” Science, August. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1235367.
Liu, Laibao, Gang He, Mengxi Wu, Gang Liu, Haoran Zhang, Ying Chen, Jiashu Shen, and Shuangcheng Li. 2023. “Climate Change Impacts on Planned Supply–Demand Match in Global Wind and Solar Energy Systems.” Nature Energy 8 (8): 870–80. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01304-w.
Neumann, James E., Jacqueline Willwerth, Jeremy Martinich, James McFarland, Marcus C. Sarofim, and Gary Yohe. 2020. “Climate Damage Functions for Estimating the Economic Impacts of Climate Change in the United States.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 14 (1): 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rez021.
Valuing Climate Changes: Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide. 2017. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24651.
Yalew, Seleshi G, Michelle TH van Vliet, David EHJ Gernaat, Fulco Ludwig, Ariel Miara, Chan Park, Edward Byers, et al. 2020. “Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Systems in Global and Regional Scenarios.” Nature Energy 5 (10): 794–802. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0664-z.

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