Effect of climate change on world’s oceans could cost $2 trillion a year, claims study

The effect of climate change on the world’s oceans could cost $2 trillion a year by the end of the century if appropriate measures are not put in place to curb CO2 emissions, according to a new report by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).

The study found that if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at a ‘business as usual’ level then we can expect global temperatures to rise by at least 4°C.

As result, the SEI says that we can expect widespread ocean acidification, rising sea levels, pollution, depleted fish stocks and more intense tropical cyclones. In addition, rising temperatures would not only threaten coral reefs but cause the mass migration of marine species, having a catastrophic effect on marine eco-systems.

The team’s researchers join a myriad of people and organisations calling on world leaders to make the oceans a priority in global sustainability goals.

The study, Valuing the Ocean, is the work of an international, multi-disciplinary team of experts, which includes SEI researchers. The full report is slated to be published as a peer-reviewed book later this year, while a preliminary Executive Summary is scheduled to be released in the lead up to the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June.

A key focus of the study is a groundbreaking analysis on ocean economics, designed to quantify the costs of ocean degradation, which are often invisible in the cost-benefit analyses that guide policy.

The analysis calculates the cost over the next 50 and 100 years respectively in terms of five categories of lost ocean value (fisheries, tourism, sea-level rise, storms, and the ocean carbon sink) under high- and low-emissions scenarios.

By 2100, the annual cost of the damages from ‘business as usual’ emissions, projected to lead to an average temperature rise of 4°C, is estimated to be 1.98 trillion USD, equivalent to 0.37 per cent of future global GDP. However, if a rapid emission reduction pathway was put in place then temperature rises could be limited to 2.2°C. This could save or avoid almost $1.4 trillion of these potential damages.

“These figures are just part of the story, but they provide an indication of the price of the avoidable portion of future environmental damage on the ocean – in effect the distance between our hopes and our fears,” commented Frank Ackerman, director of the Climate Economics Group at SEI-US.

“The cost of inaction increases greatly with time, a factor which must be fully recognised in climate change accounting.”

 

 

Image 01: Climate Action Stock Photo

Image 02: Massew64 | Flickr

Image 03: Leon brooks | Wikimedai Commons