Today we review a a significant report from Canada’s National Round Table on the Environment and Economy that puts an added cost of 1-10 billion dollars each year for each of the four cities assessed, as a result of the impact of climate change and the changes that this implies for air pollution on the health of people. Over the next 10 years, this translates into a cumulative cost of over $80 B in Canada’s largest city- and this is only for premature deaths. The report also has recommendations on how to reduce these impacts by making adaptations to reduce the pollution levels- widespread use of green roofs, for example.
Key Quotes:
“the first time a national analysis of this kind, using various climate and growth scenarios, has been conducted to calculate how the economic costs of climate change stack up over time.. Climate change costs for Canada could escalate from roughly $5 billion per year in 2020 — less than 10 years away — to between $21 billion and $43 billion per year by the 2050s”
“We estimated the futures costs of climate change separately for two types of health impacts under each of our four scenarios : changes in risk of death from increased summertime heat and changes in risk of illnesses and deaths from poorer air quality”
“Climate change results in additional deaths from heat and air pollution across the four cities on the order of three to six deaths per 100,000 people per year in the 2020s, with impacts worsening in future decades”
“According to our analysis, by the 2080s, deaths related to higher temperatures and poorer air quality attributable to climate change could account for 1% to 2% of the total deaths within the cities examined”
“In a changing climate, deteriorating air quality will lead to an additional four to seven hospital visits per 100,000 people per year by the 2050s”
“Poorer air quality will also increase the number of days people present with respiratory problems resulting in a roughly three-fold increase with high climate change and a roughly two-fold increase with low climate change, between the 2020s and 2080s”
“The costs of premature death risks from climate change calculated based on the VSL are in the order of billions of dollars per year for each city, and they grow over time”
Related articles
- Global warming to cost Canada billions a year (marketwatch.com)
- Climate 'could hit Canadian GDP' (bbc.co.uk)
- Climate change could cost billions a year by 2020 (cbc.ca)
- Paying the Price - NRTEE National News Release (climateinsight.wordpress.com)
- Climate change impact and health issues (chimalaya.org)
- Climate change could cost Canada 1% of GDP by 2050: panel (news.nationalpost.com)
- Green Blog: Global Warming Could Cost Canada Billions, Study Warns (green.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Climate change could cost Canada billions: report (theprovince.com)
- Climate change could cost Canada $43B a year by 2050: Report (canada.com)
- Climate change could cost Canada billions: Report (canada.com)
- Climate change could cost Canada billions: report (calgaryherald.com)
- The Spiraling Costs of Climate Change Denial (newanthropocene.wordpress.com)
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