Climate change already costing Australia's NSW billions: report
Baku, June 10, AZERTAC
Climate change has already reduced economic output in Australia's New South Wales (NSW) by an estimated 18 percent in 2024, according to Xinhua.
The study, led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW), calculates the impact to be an average annual loss of 21,288 Australian dollars (approximately 14,924 U.S. dollars) per person across the state, the country's largest economic jurisdiction, according to a UNSW statement issued on Wednesday.
Unlike most climate studies that project future impacts of different warming scenarios, the analysis compares current economic performance with a hypothetical reality where human-caused greenhouse gas emissions did not warm the planet, said Timothy Neal, senior lecturer in economics at the UNSW.
Neal modeled global weather and temperature records from 1975 to 2024 against economic growth, then compared the data with a "counterfactual" scenario of a cooler world where human-generated greenhouse gases did not drive climate change.
"We don't get to observe the world without anthropogenic warming, but the best guess from the data we have is that we would be meaningfully richer today if it didn't exist," Neal said.
The research finds most economic damage stems from global climate effects rather than local bushfires or flooding, with disruptions to international supply chains, agricultural output and trade linked to changing weather patterns accounting for the bulk of losses in the deeply interconnected global economy.
The researchers said climate change should not be viewed as merely an environmental issue that can be sidelined during tough economic times -- it is "a current and ongoing threat to our standard of living."
Other news in this section
