Journal ArticleDOI
Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production
TLDR
Overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures, which provides the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate.Abstract:
Economic productivity is shown to peak at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and decline at high temperatures, indicating that climate change is expected to lower global incomes more than 20% by 2100. Temperature, and therefore climate change, can affect a country's economic productivity, but it has not been clear if rich and poor countries, or different aspects of economic productivity, show similar relationships. These authors use economic data from 166 countries for the years 1960 to 2010 to uncover a universal nonlinear relationship that reconciles earlier results. Economic productivity peaks at an annual average temperature of 13 °C, and the authors explore the likelihood of global economic contraction under future warming scenarios. Growing evidence demonstrates that climatic conditions can have a profound impact on the functioning of modern human societies1,2, but effects on economic activity appear inconsistent. Fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries3,4. In contrast, aggregate macroeconomic productivity of entire wealthy countries is reported not to respond to temperature5, while poor countries respond only linearly5,6. Resolving this conflict between micro and macro observations is critical to understanding the role of wealth in coupled human–natural systems7,8 and to anticipating the global impact of climate change9,10. Here we unify these seemingly contradictory results by accounting for non-linearity at the macro scale. We show that overall economic productivity is non-linear in temperature for all countries, with productivity peaking at an annual average temperature of 13 °C and declining strongly at higher temperatures. The relationship is globally generalizable, unchanged since 1960, and apparent for agricultural and non-agricultural activity in both rich and poor countries. These results provide the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate and establish a new empirical foundation for modelling economic loss in response to climate change11,12, with important implications. If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality, relative to scenarios without climate change. In contrast to prior estimates, expected global losses are approximately linear in global mean temperature, with median losses many times larger than leading models indicate.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Solomon Hsiang,Daniel Allen,Sébastien Annan-Phan,Kendon Bell,Kendon Bell,Ian Bolliger,Trinetta Chong,Hannah Druckenmiller,Luna Yue Huang,Andrew Hultgren,Emma Krasovich,Peiley Lau,Jaecheol Lee,Esther Rolf,Jeanette Tseng,Tiffany Wu +15 more
TL;DR: It is estimated that across these six countries, interventions prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting roughly 530 million total infections, and anti-contagion policies have significantly and substantially slowed this growth.
Journal ArticleDOI
Hierarchically porous polymer coatings for highly efficient passive daytime radiative cooling
Jyotirmoy Mandal,Yanke Fu,Adam C. Overvig,Mingxin Jia,Kerui Sun,Norman Nan Shi,Hua Zhou,Hua Zhou,Xianghui Xiao,Xianghui Xiao,Nanfang Yu,Yuan Yang +11 more
TL;DR: A simple, inexpensive, and scalable phase inversion–based method for fabricating hierarchically porous poly(vinylidene fluoride-co-hexafluoropropene) [P(VdF-HFP)HP] coatings with excellent PDRC capability, which equals or surpasses those of state-of-the-art PDRC designs, and the technique offers a paint-like simplicity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate policy implications of nonlinear decline of Arctic land permafrost and other cryosphere elements
Dmitry Yumashev,Chris Hope,Kevin Schaefer,Kathrin Riemann-Campe,Fernando Iglesias-Suarez,Fernando Iglesias-Suarez,Elchin Jafarov,Elchin Jafarov,Eleanor J. Burke,Paul Young,Yasin Elshorbany,Gail Whiteman +11 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored nonlinear transitions in the Arctic feedbacks and their subsequent impacts on the global climate and economy under the Paris Agreement scenarios, and found an important contribution to warming which leads to additional economic losses from climate change.
Journal ArticleDOI
The irreversible momentum of clean energy.
TL;DR: The mounting economic and scientific evidence leave me confident that trends toward a clean-energy economy that have emerged during my presidency will continue and that the economic opportunity for the country to harness that trend will only grow.
References
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Posted Content
The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950-1987
Robert Summers,Alan Heston +1 more
TL;DR: The Penn World Table as discussed by the authors is a set of national accounts economic time series covering many countries and its expenditure entries are denominated in common set of prices in a common currency so that real quantity comparisons can be made, both between countries and over time.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Penn World Table (Mark 5): An Expanded Set of International Comparisons, 1950–1988
Robert Summers,Alan Heston +1 more
TL;DR: The Penn World Table as discussed by the authors is a set of national accounts economic time series covering many countries and its expenditure entries are denominated in common set of prices in a common currency so that real quantity comparisons can be made, both between countries and over time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nonlinear temperature effects indicate severe damages to U.S. crop yields under climate change
TL;DR: Yields increase with temperature but that temperatures above these thresholds are very harmful, suggesting limited historical adaptation of seed varieties or management practices to warmer temperatures because the cross-section includes farmers' adaptations to warmer climates and the time-series does not.
Journal ArticleDOI
A new scenario framework for climate change research: the concept of shared socioeconomic pathways
Brian C. O'Neill,Elmar Kriegler,Keywan Riahi,Kristie L. Ebi,Stephane Hallegatte,Timothy R. Carter,Ritu Mathur,Detlef P. van Vuuren,Detlef P. van Vuuren +8 more
TL;DR: A conceptual framework for how to define and develop a set of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) for use within the scenario framework for climate change research is proposed.