New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049

Climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming, with the poorest areas and those least responsible for heating the atmosphere taking the biggest monetary hit, a new study said. “Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly-developed ones such as Germany and the U.S., with a projected median income reduction of 11% each and France with 13%,” said study co-author Leonie Wenz, a climate scientist and economist. This new study looked deeper than past research, examining 1,600 global areas that are smaller than countries, took several climate factors into account and examined how long climate economic shocks last, Kotz said. Marshall Burke, the Stanford University climate economist who wrote the 2015 study, said this new research’s finding that the economic damage ahead is locked in and large “makes a lot of sense.” Burke, who wasn’t part of this study, said he has some issues with some of the technical calculations “so I wouldn’t put a ton of weight on their specific numerical estimates, but I think the big picture is basically right.” The conclusions are on the high end compared to other recent studies, but since climate change goes for a long time and economic damage from higher temperatures keep compounding, they “add up to very large numbers,” said University of California Davis economist and environmental studies professor Frances Moore, who wasn’t part of the study.