How much is the climate crisis costing? Here are the estimates
Although many people continue to believe that the climate crisis doesn’t exist, scientists are taking it very seriously. A new report estimates how much an hour is the climate crisis costing us. The numbers are alarming.
The climate crisis is a fact. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, torrential downpours – they all are affecting the lives of people around the world. While some don't believe in global warming, more and more countries are struggling with its effects. To make people aware of the scale of the problem, scientists have calculated the cost of the climate crisis. They are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
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How do you put a price tag on human life?
In their calculations, the researchers included both material damage such as destroyed property, but also losses that cannot be valued, i.e. human life. This seems heartless, but Professor Ilan Noy of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, the author of the study, said that calculating the price of human life is necessary.
"A lot of people are very uncomfortable with the idea that we put a price tag on a life," Noy told the Guardian. "But this is very standard economic practice and comes about because, ultimately, we need make decisions about [the value of] investments in various things."
The study determined the average price of a human life based on data used by the US and UK governments. In view of the statistics obtained, the researchers estimated the price of a single life lost at $7 million. According to Prof Noy, not taking the cost of life into account would significantly reduce the price of the climate crisis, especially in rich countries.
The cost of the climate crisis is staggering
According to Professor Ilan Noy and his team of researchers, the average cost of the climate crisis over the last 20 years has been $16 million per hour (!). This means that the climate crisis costs around $140 billion per year, which means that 20 years of crisis have amounted to $2,8 trillion dollars.
Two-thirds of the costs are related to human deaths. A third refers to the destruction of property and other assets. In an interview for the Guardian, Noy said that there are many extreme weather events for which no data on deaths or damage has been collected: "The headline number is $140bn a year and, first of all, that’s already a big number."
The researcher said that data on heatwave deaths were only available in Europe. "We have no idea how many people died from heatwaves in all of sub-Saharan Africa."
Source: BBC, The Guardian
