"Implausible worst-case scenarios do not further the debate over reasonable policies for addressing climate change.
"Mass deaths and mayhem: National Climate Assessment's most shocking warnings," blares the headline at CBS News.
The story, which discusses the government's Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), says that the document predicts "an estimated loss of up to 10 percent gross domestic product by 2100."
This same estimate was cited by many other news outlets.
For example, the first paragraph of The New York Times' article on the NCA4 says that "if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century's end."
Puzzled by this reporting, I did a rough calculation in my initial reporting on the NCA4.
Today's $20 trillion GDP, growing at a 3 percent rate, would rise to $226 trillion by 2100.
With climate change, it would instead rise to only $203 trillion.
Americans living at the end of this century would be about 10 times richer on average than we are now, albeit in a much warmer world.
So where did those estimates come from?
Basically from a worst-case scenario of temperature increase called in climate-speak Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5). RCPs are four different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories used by climate modelers and adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its fifth Assessment Report in 2014. imate change..."
Read all!
The story, which discusses the government's Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), says that the document predicts "an estimated loss of up to 10 percent gross domestic product by 2100."
This same estimate was cited by many other news outlets.
For example, the first paragraph of The New York Times' article on the NCA4 says that "if significant steps are not taken to rein in global warming, the damage will knock as much as 10 percent off the size of the American economy by century's end."
Puzzled by this reporting, I did a rough calculation in my initial reporting on the NCA4.
Today's $20 trillion GDP, growing at a 3 percent rate, would rise to $226 trillion by 2100.
With climate change, it would instead rise to only $203 trillion.
Americans living at the end of this century would be about 10 times richer on average than we are now, albeit in a much warmer world.
So where did those estimates come from?
Basically from a worst-case scenario of temperature increase called in climate-speak Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP 8.5). RCPs are four different greenhouse gas concentration trajectories used by climate modelers and adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for its fifth Assessment Report in 2014. imate change..."
Read all!
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