Climate change futures: health, ecological and economic dimensions

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DISCONTINUITIES CLIVAR, Climate Variability and Predictability World Climate Research Programme, a collaborative effort that looks at long- as well as short-term variability, studies discontinuities. Several step-wise shifts in climate may already have occurred in the past three decades. One step-wise climate shift may have occurred around 1976 (CLIVAR 1992). The eastern Pacific Ocean became warmer, as surface pressures and winds shifted across the Pacific. Between 1976 and 1998, El Niños became larger, more frequent and persisted longer than at any time according to records kept since 1887. The period included the two largest El Niños of the century, the return times decreased and the longest persisting El Niño conditions (five years and nine months; Trenberth 1997) eliminated pestkilling frosts in the southern and middle sections of the US. Termites proliferated in New Orleans. Then, in 1998, another step-wise adjustment may have occurred, as the eastern Pacific turned cold (burying heat), becoming “The perfect ocean for drought” (Hoerling and Kumar 2003), as cool waters evaporate slowly. After this “correction,” the energized climate system has ushered in an anomalous series of years with unusually intense heat waves and highly destructive storms. Finally, there is the question of the ocean circulation system that delivers significant heat to the North Atlantic region. Most models (Houghton et al. 2001) project slowing or collapse of the ocean conveyor belt — the pulley-like system of sinking water in the Arctic that drags warm water north and has helped to stabilize climate over millennia. The cold, dense, saline water that sinks as part of the conveyor belt in the North Atlantic has been getting fresher (Dickson et al. 2002; Curry et al. 2003; Curry and Mauritzen 2005), as melting ice flows into the ocean, and more rain falls at high latitudes and flows into the Arctic Sea (Peterson et al. 2002). This freshening may be reducing the vigor of the global circulation (Munk 2003; Wadhams and Munk 2004). TREND ANALYSES: EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS AND COSTS The Chicago Mercantile Exchange estimates that about 25% of the US economy is affected by the weather (Cohen et al. 2001). Vulnerability to disasters varies with location and socioeconomic development. Vulnerabilities to damages also increase as the return times of disasters become shorter. More frequent, intense storms hitting the same region in sequence leave little time for recovery and resilience in developed as well as developing nations. The rapid sequences themselves increase vulnerability to subsequent events, and disasters occurring concurrently in multiple geographic locations increase the exposure of insurers, reinsurers, and others who must manage and spread risks. The cost of climate events quickly spreads beyond the immediate area of impact, as was shown by studies of the consequences of the US $10 billion European windstorms and Hurricane Floyd in the US in 1999 (IFRC and RCS 1999). To further develop the context for the scenarios, we first consider the trends in extreme weather events and associated costs, which set the stage for assessing the likelihood of more health, ecological and economic consequences of an unstable climate regime. The number of weather-related disasters has already risen over the past century (EM-DAT 2005). The nature of the associated losses, however, varies considerably around the globe. In the past decade, more such events are occurring in the Northern Hemisphere (EM- DAT 2005), and the losses are beginning to be felt by all. The composition of event types has also been undergoing change, with a particularly notable increase in events with material consequences for health and nutrition in the developing world (extreme temperature episodes, epidemics and famine). 21 | THE CLIMATE CONTEXT TODAY The dangers of disruption of ocean circulation involve the counterintuitive but real possibility that global warming might precipitate a sudden cooling in economically strategic parts of the globe as well as the prospect of an economically disastrous “flickering climate,” as climate lurches between cold and warm, and potentially tries to settle into a new state (Broecker 1997).
Figure 1.5 Global Weather-Related Losses from “Great” Events: 1950-2005 Economic losses (2005 values), Trend - - - - Insured lossess (2005 values), Trend ––––– 22 | THE CLIMATE CONTEXT TODAY Events are considered “great” if the affected region’s resilience is clearly overstretched and supraregional or international assistance is required. As a rule, this is the case when there are thousands of fatalilities, when hundreds of thousands of people are made homeless, or when economic losses — depending on the economic circumstances of the country concerned — and/or insured losses reach exceptional levels. Source: Munich Re, NatCatSERVICE. From 1980 through 2004, the economic costs of “all” 1 weather-related natural disasters totaled US $1.4 trillion (in 2004 US dollars) (Mills 2005), apportioned approximately 40/60 between wealthy and poor countries, respectively (Munich Re 2004). 2,3 To put the burden of these costs on insurers in contemporary perspective, the recent annual average is on a par with that experienced in the aftermath of 9/11 in the US. The insured portion of losses from weather-related catastrophes is on the rise, increasing from a small fraction of the global total economic losses in the 1950s to 19% in the 1990s and 35% in 2004. The ratio has been rising twice as quickly in the US, with over 40% of the total disaster losses being insured in the 1990s (American Re 2005). Where the burden of losses falls depends on geography, the type of risk and the political clout of those in harm’s way. The developed world has sophisticated ways of spreading risk. While insurance covers 4% of total costs in low-income countries, the figure rises to 40% in high-income countries. A disproportionate amount of insurance payouts in high-income countries arise from storm events, largely because governments, rather than the private sector, tend to insure flood rather than storm risk. In both rich and poor nations, economic costs (especially insured costs) fall predominantly on wealthier populations, whereas the loss of life falls predominantly on the poor. 1. This includes "large" and "small" events, as defined by insurers, but does not in fact fully capture all such events. For example, the Property Claims Service in the United States only counts events that result in over US $25 million in insured losses. 2. Per Munich Re's definition, total economic losses are dominated by direct damages, defined as damage to fixed assets (including property or crops), capital, and inventories of finished and semifinished goods or raw materials that occur simultaneously or as a direct consequence of the natural phenomenon causing a disaster. The economic loss data can also include indirect or other secondary damages such as business interruptions or temporary relocation expenses for displaced households. More loosely related damages such as impacts on national GDP are not included. 3. Of 8,820 natural catastrophes analyzed worldwide during the period 1985-1999 (Munich Re 1999), 85% were weather-related, as were 75% of the economic losses and 87% of the insured losses.
Page 1 and 2: Climate Change Futures Health, Ecol
Page 3 and 4: Published by: The Center for Health
Page 5 and 6: PREAMBLE Hurricane Katrina 4 | PREA
Page 7 and 8: 6 | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY With this in
Page 9 and 10: 8 | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Other non-lin
Page 11 and 12: THE CASE STUDIES IN BRIEF Floods in
Page 13 and 14: 12 | EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE CCF PROJ
Page 16 and 17: PART I: The Climate Context Today
Page 18 and 19: (see McCarthy et al. 2001). As glac
Page 20 and 21: Table 1.1 Extreme Weather Events an
Page 24 and 25: Figure 1.6 The Frequency of Weather
Page 26 and 27: Figure 1.7 Trends in Events, Losses
Page 28 and 29: • Thawing of permafrost (permanen
Page 30 and 31: CCF-II: GRADUAL WARMING WITH INCREA
Page 32 and 33: PART II: Case Studies
Page 34 and 35: CLIMATE CHANGE AND EMERGING INFECTI
Page 36 and 37: HEALTH IMPACTS Malaria is character
Page 38 and 39: Figure 2.5 Brazil N Brazil COLOMBIA
Page 40 and 41: estimates (over and above current a
Page 42 and 43: SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS Preventing
Page 44 and 45: 262 deaths in 2003; 7,470 cases and
Page 46 and 47: 98% of the two-year life cycle take
Page 48 and 49: The rise in minimum temperature res
Page 50 and 51: While the role of allergen exposure
Page 52 and 53: AIR QUALITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE ISSU
Page 54 and 55: EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS 1984 and 199
Page 56 and 57: HEALTH AND ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS Heat
Page 58 and 59: Figure 2.20 Projected Excess Deaths
Page 60 and 61: THE ROLE OF CLIMATE Australia exper
Page 62 and 63: Service). Since 2002, severe floods
Page 64 and 65: Table 2.1 Economic Losses in Europe
Page 66 and 67: NATURAL AND MANAGED SYSTEMS adelgid
Page 68 and 69: created unstable conditions conduci
Page 70 and 71: Climate research has already identi
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LOSSES ASSOCIATED WITH 1993 HEAVY P
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Figure 2.28 Soybean Rust Introducti
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Table 2.3 Extreme Weather Events Ca
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General measures to reduce the impa
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Physiological stresses on reef orga
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There are many questions concerning
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• Terminating practices that dest
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ecome contaminated with viruses and
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In 2001 the IPCC fully recognized t
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While seawater desalinization is cu
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PART III: Financial Implications, S
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Figure 3.1 Reinsurance Prices Are H
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RISK SPREADING IN DEVELOPED AND DEV
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THE LIMITS OF INSURABILITY Not all
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(also known as “cash-flow underwr
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from areas plagued by persistent dr
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Engagement of the insurance industr
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Industry observers point out that p
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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Jus
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FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS Regulators an
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of carbon-risk hedging products, su
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Summary Table of Extreme Weather Ev
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Table B.1 Summer Percentage Frequen
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Climate sensitivity for small-scale
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diffuse and do not manifest in sing
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APPENDIX D. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AT
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Carmenza Robledo Gruppe Oekologie E
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126 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Bibliography AAA
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128 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Chordas, L. Epid
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Ford, S.E. & Tripp, M.R. Diseases a
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132 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Kalkstein, L. S.
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134 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Mills, E. The in
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136 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Rose, J. B., Eps
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138 | BIBLIOGRAPHY Vandyk, J. K., B
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Infectious and Respiratory Diseases
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