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Assessing the costs of historical inaction on climate change.

ABSTRACT: We consider alternative history scenarios in which explicit climate mitigation begins before the present day, estimating the total costs to date of delayed action. Considering a 2(1.5) degree Celsius stabilization target, peak costs are greater and reached sooner with a later start to mitigation, reaching 15(17)% of global GDP in 2085(2070) for a 1990 start and 18(35)% in 2080(2035) for a 2020 start. Further mitigation delay costs a best estimate of an additional 0.5(5) trillion dollars per year. Additional simulations show how optimal mitigation pathways evolve without imposing a warming limit, finding that median abatement levels and costs are not strongly dependent on start date. However, whereas 18(5) percent of optimal solutions starting in 1980 meet the 2(or 1.5) degree target, 5(or 0)% of 2020 simulations meet the goals. Discounted damages due to delayed mitigation action rise by 0.6 trillion US dollars per year in 2020.

SUBMITTER: Sanderson BM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7280186 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Assessing the costs of historical inaction on climate change.

Sanderson Benjamin M BM O'Neill Brian C BC

Scientific reports 20200608 1

We consider alternative history scenarios in which explicit climate mitigation begins before the present day, estimating the total costs to date of delayed action. Considering a 2(1.5) degree Celsius stabilization target, peak costs are greater and reached sooner with a later start to mitigation, reaching 15(17)% of global GDP in 2085(2070) for a 1990 start and 18(35)% in 2080(2035) for a 2020 start. Further mitigation delay costs a best estimate of an additional 0.5(5) trillion dollars per year ...[more]

PMID: 32514079

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Project description:The pace of climate change in the Arctic is dramatic, with temperatures rising at a rate double the global average. The timing of flowering and fruiting (phenology) is often temperature dependent and tends to advance as the climate warms. Herbarium specimens, photographs, and field observations can provide historical phenology records and have been used, on a localised scale, to predict species' phenological sensitivity to climate change. Conducting similar localised studies in the Canadian Arctic, however, poses a challenge where the collection of herbarium specimens, photographs, and field observations have been temporally and spatially sporadic. We used flowering and seed dispersal times of 23 Arctic species from herbarium specimens, photographs, and field observations collected from across the 2.1 million km2 area of Nunavut, Canada, to determine (1) which monthly temperatures influence flowering and seed dispersal times; (2) species' phenological sensitivity to temperature; and (3) whether flowering or seed dispersal times have advanced over the past 120 years. We tested this at different spatial scales and compared the sensitivity in different regions of Nunavut. Broadly speaking, this research serves as a proof of concept to assess whether phenology-climate change studies using historic data can be conducted at large spatial scales. Flowering times and seed dispersal time were most strongly correlated with June and July temperatures, respectively. Seed dispersal times have advanced at double the rate of flowering times over the past 120 years, reflecting greater late-summer temperature rises in Nunavut. There is great diversity in the flowering time sensitivity to temperature of Arctic plant species, suggesting climate change implications for Arctic ecological communities, including altered community composition, competition, and pollinator interactions. Intraspecific temperature sensitivity and warming trends varied markedly across Nunavut and could result in greater changes in some parts of Nunavut than in others.

Dataset Information

Assessing the costs of historical inaction on climate change.

Publications

Assessing the costs of historical inaction on climate change.

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