Climate impacts ‘to cost world $7.9 trillion’ by 2050

PARIS: Climate change could directly cost the world economy $7.9 trillion by mid-century as increased drought, flooding and crop failures hamper growth and threaten infrastructure, new analysis showed Wednesday.

The Economist Intelligence Unit´s (EIU) Climate Change Resilience Index measured the preparedness of the world´s 82 largest economies and found that based on current trends the fallout of warming temperatures would shave off three percent of global GDP by 2050. Its analysis, which assesses each country´s direct exposure to loss as climate change brings more frequent extreme weather events, found Africa was most at-risk, with 4.7 percent of its GDP in the balance. In general, developing nations faired poorer in terms of resiliency than richer ones. "Being rich matters," John Ferguson, EIU country analysis director, told AFP.

"Richer nations are really able to be more resilient towards the impacts of climate change, so this really threatens growth trajectories of the developing world as they try to catch up with the developed world."

"When we are already dealing with global inequality, for the impacts of climate change the developing world´s challenges are much greater," he added.

Of the countries evaluated, Angola stood to lose the most -- as much as 6.1 percent of gross domestic product. The study put this down to a mixture of a lack of quality infrastructure, as well as its geographical exposure to severe drought, soil erosion and rising sea levels. Land degradation in Angola would prove a "significant" economic hindrance, the report said, given that agriculture is its largest employer. Nigeria (5.9 percent negative GDP), Egypt (5.5 percent), Bangladesh (5.4 percent) and Venezuela (5.1 percent) were the next most climate vulnerable nations identified in the analysis.