Climate Change Could Cut World Economy by $23 Trillion in 2050, Insurance Giant Warns
The effects of climate change can be expected to shave 11 percent to 14 percent off global economic output by 2050 compared with growth levels without climate change, according to a report from Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest providers of insurance to other insurance companies-
Poor nations would be particularly hard hit, but few would escape, Swiss Re said. The findings could influence how the industry prices insurance and invests its mammoth portfolios.
If countries succeed at holding average global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the goal set by the 2015 Paris accord, an agreement among nations to fight climate change — economic losses by midcentury would be marginal, according to Swiss Re. The company found that most countries’ economies would be no more than 5 percent smaller than would otherwise be the case.
But current emission levels are far from those targets. Global temperatures are likely to increase as much 2.6 degrees by 2050 based on current trajectories. Swiss Re also modeled the economic impacts of a 3.2-degree increase by 2050, which it described as the “severe case” for temperature gains.