Hot takes
The Consequences of Uncertainty: Climate Sensitivity and Economic Sensitivity to the Climate
John Hassler, Per Krusell & Conny Olovsson
Annual Review of Economics, 2018, Pages 189-205
Abstract:
We construct an integrated assessment model with multiple energy sources — two fossil fuels and green energy — and use it to evaluate ranges of plausible estimates for the climate sensitivity, as well as for the sensitivity of the economy to climate change. Rather than focusing explicitly on uncertainty, we look at extreme scenarios defined by the upper and lower limits given in available studies in the literature. We compare optimal policy with laissez faire, and we point out the possible policy errors that could arise. By far the largest policy error arises when the climate policy is overly passive; overly zealous climate policy (i.e., a high carbon tax applied when climate change and its negative impacts on the economy are very limited) does not hurt the economy much as there is considerable substitutability between fossil and nonfossil energy sources.
Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy
Tomoko Hasegawa et al.
Nature Climate Change, August 2018, Pages 699–703
Abstract:
Food insecurity can be directly exacerbated by climate change due to crop-production-related impacts of warmer and drier conditions that are expected in important agricultural regions. However, efforts to mitigate climate change through comprehensive, economy-wide GHG emissions reductions may also negatively affect food security, due to indirect impacts on prices and supplies of key agricultural commodities. Here we conduct a multiple model assessment on the combined effects of climate change and climate mitigation efforts on agricultural commodity prices, dietary energy availability and the population at risk of hunger. A robust finding is that by 2050, stringent climate mitigation policy, if implemented evenly across all sectors and regions, would have a greater negative impact on global hunger and food consumption than the direct impacts of climate change. The negative impacts would be most prevalent in vulnerable, low-income regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where food security problems are already acute.
Effects of environmental stressors on daily governance
Nick Obradovich, Dustin Tingley & Iyad Rahwan
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 28 August 2018, Pages 8710-8715
Abstract:
Human workers ensure the functioning of governments around the world. The efficacy of human workers, in turn, is linked to the climatic conditions they face. Here we show that the same weather that amplifies human health hazards also reduces street-level government workers’ oversight of these hazards. To do so, we employ US data from over 70 million regulatory police stops between 2000 and 2017, from over 500,000 fatal vehicular crashes between 2001 and 2015, and from nearly 13 million food safety violations across over 4 million inspections between 2012 and 2016. We find that cold and hot temperatures increase fatal crash risk and incidence of food safety violations while also decreasing police stops and food safety inspections. Added precipitation increases fatal crash risk while also decreasing police stops. We examine downscaled general circulation model output to highlight the possible day-to-day governance impacts of climate change by 2050 and 2099. Future warming may augment regulatory oversight during cooler seasons. During hotter seasons, however, warming may diminish regulatory oversight while simultaneously amplifying the hazards government workers are tasked with overseeing.
Damages Done: The Longitudinal Impacts of Natural Hazards on Wealth Inequality in the United States
Junia Howell & James Elliott
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigates a largely ignored contributor to wealth inequality in the United States: damages from natural hazards, which are expected to increase substantially in coming years. Instead of targeting a specific large-scale disaster and assessing how different subpopulations recover, we begin with a nationally representative sample of respondents from the restricted, geocoded Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We follow them through time (1999–2013) as hazard damages of varying scales accrue in the counties where they live. This design synthesizes the longitudinal, population-centered approach common in stratification research with a broad hazard-centered focus that extends beyond disasters to integrate ongoing environmental dynamics more centrally into the production of social inequality. Results indicate that as local hazard damages increase, so does wealth inequality, especially along lines of race, education, and homeownership. At any given level of local damage, the more aid an area receives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the more this inequality grows. These findings suggest that two defining social problems of our day – wealth inequality and rising natural hazard damages – are dynamically linked, requiring new lines of research and policy making in the future.
Impact of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global human nutrition
Matthew Smith & Samuel Myers
Nature Climate Change, forthcoming
Abstract:
Atmospheric CO2 is on pace to surpass 550 ppm in the next 30–80 years. Many food crops grown under 550 ppm have protein, iron and zinc contents that are reduced by 3–17% compared with current conditions. We analysed the impact of elevated CO2 concentrations on the sufficiency of dietary intake of iron, zinc and protein for the populations of 151 countries using a model of per-capita food availability stratified by age and sex, assuming constant diets and excluding other climate impacts on food production. We estimate that elevated CO2 could cause an additional 175 million people to be zinc deficient and an additional 122 million people to be protein deficient (assuming 2050 population and CO2 projections). For iron, 1.4 billion women of childbearing age and children under 5 are in countries with greater than 20% anaemia prevalence and would lose >4% of dietary iron. Regions at highest risk — South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East — require extra precautions to sustain an already tenuous advance towards improved public health.
Gender and climate change: Do female parliamentarians make a difference?
Astghik Mavisakalyan & Yashar Tarverdi
European Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper investigates whether female political representation in national parliaments influences climate change policy outcomes. Based on data from a large sample of countries, we demonstrate that female representation leads countries to adopt more stringent climate change policies. We exploit a combination of full and partial identification approaches to suggest that this relationship is likely to be causal. Moreover, we show that through its effect on the stringency of climate change policies, the representation of females in parliament results in lower carbon dioxide emissions. Female political representation may be an underutilized tool for addressing climate change.
Wildfire risk, salience & housing demand
Shawn McCoy & Randall Walsh
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we develop a parsimonious model that links underlying changes in location-specific risk perceptions to housing market dynamics. Given estimates of both the price and quantity effects induced by shocks to agents' beliefs, the model allows us to draw inferences about the underlying changes in risk perceptions that gave rise to observed housing market dynamics. We apply the model's predictions to an empirical analysis of the influence of severe wildfires on housing prices and sales rates in the Front Range of Colorado. Interpreted in the context of the model, our empirical results suggest that natural disasters lead to significant, but short-lived increases in risk perceptions.
A novel probabilistic forecast system predicting anomalously warm 2018-2022 reinforcing the long-term global warming trend
Florian Sévellec & Sybren Drijfhout
Nature Communications, August 2018
Abstract:
In a changing climate, there is an ever-increasing societal demand for accurate and reliable interannual predictions. Accurate and reliable interannual predictions of global temperatures are key for determining the regional climate change impacts that scale with global temperature, such as precipitation extremes, severe droughts, or intense hurricane activity, for instance. However, the chaotic nature of the climate system limits prediction accuracy on such timescales. Here we develop a novel method to predict global-mean surface air temperature and sea surface temperature, based on transfer operators, which allows, by-design, probabilistic forecasts. The prediction accuracy is equivalent to operational forecasts and its reliability is high. The post-1998 global warming hiatus is well predicted. For 2018–2022, the probabilistic forecast indicates a warmer than normal period, with respect to the forced trend. This will temporarily reinforce the long-term global warming trend. The coming warm period is associated with an increased likelihood of intense to extreme temperatures. The important numerical efficiency of the method (a few hundredths of a second on a laptop) opens the possibility for real-time probabilistic predictions carried out on personal mobile devices.
Valuing the Global Mortality Consequences of Climate Change Accounting for Adaptation Costs and Benefits
Tamma Carleton
University of Chicago Working Paper, August 2018
Abstract:
Using subnational data from 41 countries, we develop an empirical model of the mortality-temperature relationship that allows us to estimate effects where no mortality data exist and to account for the benefits of adaptation to climate. Importantly, we develop a revealed preference approach that bounds adaptation costs, even though they cannot be directly observed. Using future climate simulations, we compute a median willingness-to-pay of $20 (moderate emissions scenario) to $39 (high emissions scenario) to avoid the excess mortality risk caused by a 1t increase in CO2 emissions (2015 USD, 3% discount rate). Allocating these costs to 24,378 political units, we find substantial heterogeneity.
Amplified warming of droughts in southern United States in observations and model simulations
Felicia Chiang, Omid Mazdiyasni & Amir AghaKouchak
Science Advances, August 2018
Abstract:
During droughts, low surface moisture may translate surface heating into warming, since excess energy will be converted into sensible heat instead of evaporating as latent heat. Recent concurrent occurrences of droughts and heatwaves have caused compounding ecosystem and societal stresses, which prompted our investigation of whether there has been a shift in temperatures under meteorological drought conditions in the United States. Using historical observations, we detect that droughts have been warming faster than the average climate in the southern and northeastern United States. Climate model projections also show a pronounced warming shift in southern states between the late 20th and 21st centuries. We argue that concurrent changes in vapor pressure deficit and relative humidity influence the amplified warming, modifying interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere. We anticipate that the magnified shift in temperatures will bring more concurrent extremes in the future, exacerbating individual impacts from high temperatures and droughts.