Economic growth of the poorest nations affected by climate change
A recent study by Professor Richard Tol, Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and Dr Marco Letta uncovers the impact climate change has on the productivity of developing countries, which will slow their economic growth.
The research, published in Environmental and Resource Economics, warns that the world’s 100 poorest countries will be 5% worse off by the end of 2099 than they would have been without climate change. This will eliminate trillions of dollars from the global economy every year.
Professor Tol believes that the research displays how more work needs to be done to marry policies that aim to tackle climate change, and aim to alleviate poverty, to better combat the effect they have on one another.
He said: “Our analysis suggests that weather shocks affect economic growth through a reduction in productivity only when coupled with poverty; it doesn’t show that climate change will harm all future economic growth by affecting technological progress, as hypothesised in some literature. Given the importance of total productivity growth for long-run development, our paper raises concerns over the inequality of future climate impacts, and calls for policy makers to consider poverty reduction as a crucial element of climate policy in future.”