Europe is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and this is showing up in alarming ways. According to a new study mentioned by The Guardian, ” Going NUTS: The regional impact of extreme climate events over the medium term”
We have known it for decades : climate change, left unaddressed or addressed insufficiently, will cause catastrophic weather events such as droughts and wild fires, floods, rising sea levels… This has become the new norm over the years and this might only be the beginning.
According to the article from the Guardian :
” The violent weather that battered Europe this summer caused short-term economic losses of at least €43bn ($50 billion), according to an EU-wide estimate, with costs expected to rise to €126bn by 2029.
The immediate hit to the economy from a single brutal summer of heat, drought and flooding amounted to 0.26% of the EU’s economic output in 2024 (…).”
The study itself starts in an epic way that will resonate with each of us :
” The economic stability of the Great Moderation at the dawn of the 21st Century has given way to economic turbulence. The past two decades have witnessed the Global Financial Crisis, the Great Recession, the COVID pandemic and more recently Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These shocks have all been temporary, albeit persistent.
Yet the coming decades risk continued disturbances from worsening structural trends and ever-growing shocks. In the words of Christine Lagarde, “As central bankers, we are now facing a fundamentally different environment: one characterised by more instability, more volatility and more uncertainty about the very structure of the economy” (Lagarde, 2024). Draghi (2024) highlights the economic challenges arising from weak productivity growth and a declining population.
Against this background of heightened economic uncertainty, we investigate the macroeconomic impact of extreme climate events. That these events will become more frequent and more intense over the course of the coming decades looks to be an unfortunate certainty (IPCC, 2021). “
Furthermore, a new study in Nature on the massive wildfires that took place in Canada in 2023 have killed an estimated 82,100 people globally, including 33,000 in the US and 8,300 in Canada. These 6,000 wildfires (!) had burned over 150 000 square kilometers (58,000 square miles)
If our so-called leaders and elected representatives seem only to care for GDP and economic growth, they might as well start addressing climate change seriously.
What do you think ? Will governments increase their respective and collective response to climate change or are you still expecting more business-as-usual ?
