More Climate and Disaster Nonsense
HYPERLINK "http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000989more_climate_and_dis.html" http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000989more_climate_and_dis.html
Posted by Pielke Jr.
Debunking nonsense related to disaster losses and climate change is getting to be a full time job. The latest misleading information is uncritically reported by Reuters and comes from a report commissioned by UNEP. Reuters HYPERLINK "http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=WAL445754" reports:
Losses from extreme weather could top $1 trillion in a single year by 2040, a partnership of the United Nations Environment Programme and private finance institutions (UNEP FI) warned on Tuesday.
Speaking at a major U.N. climate meeting in Kenya, they said the estimated cost of droughts, storm surges, hurricanes and floods reached a record $210 billion in 2005, and such losses linked to global warming were seen doubling every 12 years.
"This is an unequivocal statement by 15 of the largest financial institutions: Climate change is now certain," Paul Clements-Hunt of UNEP FI told a news conference.
The $1 trillion figure comes from a report commissioned by UNEP, released today ( HYPERLINK "http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/CEO_briefing_adaptation_vulnerability_2006.pdf" PDF). The report states:
The following scenario constructed by Andlug Consulting presents one possible pathway that climatic losses might follow in coming decades, and suggests how the financial sector might be affected. It is NOT a prediction, but like all scenarios, is intended to explore the future so that better plans can be made.
The trend value for economic losses in 2005 is 50 billion USD ( Figure 7). Industry analysts reckon that this is about half the total losses, which therefore are 100 billion USD. The long-term trend of six percent annual growth means the costs double every 12 years, taking them to 800 billion USD by 2041, in 2005 values. However, great disasters always appear in clusters: Figure 7 shows that one year in three, the costs are 50 percent higher than the trend-line. In fact they were more than double the trend value in 1992, 1993 and 2005. Making allowance for such clusters, and for the inclusion of all societal and opportunity costs, it seems very likely that the there will be a “peak” year that will record costs of over 1 trillion USD before 2040. In fact, since so much development is taking place in coastal zones, the figure may arrive considerably before 2040.
The $1 trillion is therefore not linked to global warming but an extension of current loss trends into the future. This is a point that we made at the AGU one year ago and which was reported responsibly by Kenneth Chang of the New York Times 11 December, 2005 ( HYPERLINK "http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F00F10F93A550C728DDDAB0994DD404482" link, registration required). That NYT article said, "With wealth and property values increasing, and more people moving to vulnerable coasts, by the year 2020 a single storm could cause losses of $500 billion -- several times the damage inflicted by Hurricane Katrina." It is no stretch to get from $500B in 2020 to $1 trillion by 2040. Of course, the size of the economy grows over that time frame as well.
Further, the UNEP analysis was prepared by Andlug Consulting, which is run by Andrew Dlugolecki, a participant in our Hohenkammer workshop of last May. At the workshop all participants agreed to the following consensus statements ( HYPERLINK "http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/sparc/research/projects/extreme_events/munich_workshop/workshop_report.html" report):
Because of issues related to data quality, the stochastic nature of extreme event impacts, length of time series, and various societal factors present in the disaster loss record, it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions . . . In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.
Hence, the projection of the possibility of a $1 trillion disaster year is independent of projected effects of human-caused changes to the climate system on the intensity or frequency of extreme events.
Bottom line: The UNEP report does not say what the representative of UNEP said it did. Nor does it say what has been reported in the major media, including the Reuters report. This is unfortunate because the UNEP-report has some valuable information on the importance of adaptation in the face of continuing growth in vulnerability to disasters. Effective policy on climate is unlikely to develop if the UN and the media are providing misleading or incorrect analyses. As Richard Tol said here last week, unsound analyses only provide fodder for those skeptical of action on climate change.
Posted on November 14, 2006 05:20 PM