New York, NY, Dec. 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A groundbreaking study published in the journal Nature estimates that by the year 2100, 90% of climate-change impact on the stock of woodlands, grasslands, and other ecosystems that provide economic benefits will be borne by the poorest 50% of regions in the world, which are more reliant on this “natural capital.”
“Humanity derives a lot of value from natural capital, and this value has been ignored in most models of optimal climate emissions,” said Fordham economics Professor Marc Conte, one of the authors of the research funded by a nearly $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation that Conte secured with collaborators from the University of California, Davis. The findings have significant implications for understanding the unequal distribution of the climate change impact on a global scale.
Refining the Framework to Determine Acceptable Emissions
“We're trying to expand the modeling framework that is used to determine optimal greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “The ultimate goal of this paper and this research is for use in policymaking. We're allowing too many emissions, and we need to pay more attention to these impacts.”
Conte and coauthors, sought to understand the impacts of greenhouse gasses on human well-being and economic production. To do so, they used global vegetation models, climate models, and World Bank estimates to predict the consequences of climate change on countries’ ecosystem services, economic production, and natural capital stocks.
The study leveraged the World Bank's wealth accounts as a basis for evaluating non-market ecosystem benefits, including the overall welfare of humanity, offering a standardized metric for comparison. Conte said, "The World Bank's values, although conservative in the scope of benefits included, provide a consistent approach to understanding the value of natural capital at the national level. Our research takes this a step further by disaggregating a country’s total value of natural capital and distributing it across different ecosystems within its borders."
Key Findings of the Research
The study entitled “Unequal Climate Impacts on Global Values of Natural Capital” found:
- Globally, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be about 1.3% lower by 2100 because of climate change's effects on natural capital.
- Lower-income countries, which rely more heavily on natural capital and produce fewer greenhouse gasses, will bear the economic brunt of climate effects. The wealthiest 10% will likely experience only 2% of these losses.
- The estimates are likely low, because only land-based ecosystems were analyzed and natural disturbances such as wildfires and blights were not accounted for (neither was the existence value of species).
Ethical and Policy Considerations
The conclusions of this study go beyond the scientific realm, touching on important ethical and policy considerations that account for the unique circumstances of each country. It highlights the responsibility of wealthier nations to recognize and address the disproportionate impact of climate change on less affluent regions that contribute less to global emissions, and serves as a critical reminder that climate change is not just an environmental concern but a profound economic and social issue, Conte said.
“Many of the low and middle income nations located in the tropics are not responsible for climate change,” Conte said. “Although they are not major emitters, they are bearing the burden of decisions that have been made by high-income nations.”
For further details, you can access the full study, "Unequal Climate Impacts on Global Values of Natural Capital," published in Nature Dec. 18, 2023.
