Average person will be 40% poorer if world warms by 4C, new research shows | Experts say previous economic models underestimated impact of global heating – as well as likely ‘cascading supply chain disruptions’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/01/average-person-will-be-40-poorer-if-world-warms-by-4c-new-research-shows
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From the article: Economic models have systematically underestimated how global heating will affect people’s wealth, according to a new study that finds 4C warming will make the average person 40% poorer – an almost four-fold increase on some estimates.
The study by Australian scientists suggests average per person GDP across the globe will be reduced by 16% even if warming is kept to 2C above pre-industrial levels. This is a much greater reduction than previous estimates, which found the reduction would be 1.4%.
Scientists now estimate global temperatures will rise by 2.1C even if countries hit short-term and long-term climate targets.
Criticisms have mounted in recent years that a set of economic tools known as integrated assessment models (IAM) – used to guide how much governments should invest in cutting greenhouse gas emissions – have failed to capture major risks from climate change, particularly extreme weather events.
The [new study](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/adbd58), in the journal Environmental Research Letters, took one of the most popular economic models and enhanced it with climate change forecasts to capture the impacts of extreme weather events across global supply chains.
Dr Timothy Neal, of the University of New South Wales’s Institute for climate risk and response and the lead author of the study, said the new research had looked at the likely impact of global heating of 4C – seen by many climate experts as catastrophic for the planet – finding it would make the average person 40% poorer. This compared with about 11% poorer when using the models without enhancements.
Nobody cares about the average people. The scientists should focus on understanding how much the billionaires will be poorer if the temperature goes up
But that’s not so bad. Per capita global GDP grows by at least 2% per year, so this is just saying that people in 2100 with global warming will only be as rich as they would have been in 2080 without global warming, and much richer than they are today. It needs to be a 90%+ hit to global GDP by 2100 to make things look really bad.
The real cost of climate inaction right here. And yet we’re still arguing about whether to even do the bare minimum. Guess my retirement plan is just “hope for the best” at this point.
In the US, we are not going to have to wait that long.
Isn’t a main reason for human survival adaptability? It’s something that shines when under pressure, and none of us are completely caught up on every development in industry. This article claims all other studies are wrong, we will lose 40 percent of our wealth? Based on what? Their crystal ball?
We’d be better off accepting that:
1) the west’s influence on global warming is limited and
2) we really have no clue, these studies are based on an insane amount of speculation, and thus limited in validity.
In my opinion.
>This compared with about 11% poorer when using the models without enhancements.
They *started* with a model that showed a decrease in wealth over time (before climate change was calculated in)?
With the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics in the horizon, the world is going to get less efficient and less wealthy over the next *century*?
Is that really a valid economic prediction?