Lecture 4 Climate Impacts

Gang He

September 7, 2023

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

Adverse impacts of climate change

The impacts are global

Vulnerable population suffers more

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

Social cost of carbon

• Marginal cost of carbon
  
• Cost included:
  
  • Net agricultural productivity
    
  • Human health
    
  • Property damage
    
  • Energy system costs
    
• Cost not included:
  
  • Unknown impact: physical, ecological, economic
    
  • Unknown cost: information
    

U.S. southern states suffer more

The poor will get damages more

Climate damage function

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

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

Climate change and conflicts

Climate change affects energy system

Climate impact to renewable supply-demand match

NYS climate impacts assessment

• Up-to-date projections of future climate conditions in New York State
• Sector-based literature reviews
• In-depth economic impact assessments
• A peer-reviewed technical report that conveys scientific findings
• Summaries and syntheses for a wider audience
• Adaptation strategies and case studies
• Links and references to primary sources for full transparency

An ongoing effort, anything missing?

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

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.

Hsiang, Solomon, Robert Kopp, Amir Jina, James Rising, Michael Delgado, Shashank Mohan, D. J. Rasmussen, et al. 2017. “Estimating Economic Damage from Climate Change in the United States.” Science 356 (6345): 1362–69. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal4369.

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.