Economic costs of rising seas will be steeper than we thought, unless we prepare
Rising seas that swamp cities and coastal infrastructure could cost the world more than 4 percent of the global economy each year by 2100 — far more than previously estimated — unless urgent action is taken both to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to prepare for such impacts from climate change, a new study finds. That worst-case scenario, which assumes that large amounts of polar ice will melt, could come to trillions of dollars. That’s “not peanuts,” says Thomas Schinko, a climate economist and deputy director of the Risk and Resilience program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna. “This would lead to a completely different world.” Given the risks, it’s hard to imagine that people won’t make any effort to adapt to a world with more flooding and coastal erosion, Schinko says. So that worst-case scenario is “not a very realistic scenario.” But regardless if the 4 percent...