Researchers slightly lower study’s estimate of drop in global income due to climate change
The authors of a study looking at the potential effect of climate change on the global economy said Wednesday that data errors led them to slightly overestimate the expected decline in income over the next 25 years.
In a 2024 paper published in the journal Nature, researchers at the German Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam predicted a 19% decline in global income by 2050. Their revised analysis puts the figure at 17%.
The authors also said in their original work that there was a 99% chance that, by mid-century, it would cost more to repair the damage caused by climate change than to build resilience. Their new analysis, not yet peer-reviewed, lowered that figure to 91%.
The Associated Press reported on the original study. Nature published a retraction on Wednesday.
The researchers cited inaccuracies in the first paper’s data, notably regarding the underlying economic data for Uzbekistan between 1995 and 1999, which had a large influence on the results, and that their analysis had underestimated statistical uncertainty.
Max Kotz, one of the study’s authors, told the AP that the core of the study remains unchanged: Climate change will be extremely damaging to the global economy if left unchecked, and its impact will hit hardest in lower-income areas, which contribute the least to the emissions that cause global warming.
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School who was not involved in the research, said the essence of the Potsdam Institute’s work remains the same, “regardless of which part of the range the real number will be.”
“Climate change is already hitting us, literally. Homeowners insurance premiums in the United States have already seen, in part, double in the last decade alone,” Wagner said. “The rapid accumulation of climate risks will only increase the numbers further. »
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Alexa St. John is a climate reporter for the Associated Press. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Contact her at ast.john@ap.org.
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