Title: The economic cost of climate change

Speaker: Leonie Wenz, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Moderator: Laurent Drouet, RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment

Abstract: Climate conditions have been shown to have a profound impact on various productive elements of the economy, measurable at the macro-level as changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). There is however huge uncertainty as to how big this impact is and if climate shocks affect economic growth also in the long-run. I will present new evidence gained from a unique data set of subnational economic output that comprises more than 1500 regions in 77 countries and discuss implications for climate policy. Specifically, in recent work, we have empirically estimated historic temperature impacts at different time scales, from daily fluctuations to changes in the long-term mean. Our findings show that temperature changes affect productivity levels considerably, in particular in low-income, low-latitude regions. Based on our results, we have projected economic damages under future warming and updated estimates of the social cost of carbon.