NEW DELHI: It is understandable that global warming is currently altering how we live.
In India’s money, New Delhi, this summer has been so warm- above 40 degrees Celsius yet at evening- that people are gasping, the tap water is scalding, and the walls of their homes emit heat like radiators.
According to the Saudi Arabian government, 1,300 travellers have now died during the Hajj this year. Due to exhaustion, people at the European football tournaments are collapsing.
IDENTIFICATION OF THE COST OF Culture CHANGE
And still economists are at the center of a new debate about the actual costs of climate change, which are clearly able to keep their cool when everyone else loses theirs. According to a fresh working paper from two academic departments at Harvard and Northwestern, which was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the economic damage caused by climate change could be as little as six times higher than previously thought.
Their design predicts that a second degree increase in global mean temperature causes a gradual decline in global GDP that tops at 12 % after six years and does not entirely recover even ten years after the shock.
They argue that this makes punitive weather change worthwhile for nations like the US, and that the argument may also apply to nations that are poorer but significantly more vulnerable to climate change, like India. Is it possible to include a few more nations around?