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Dependence of economic impacts of climate change on anthropogenically directed pathways

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 737–741 (2019)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 23 January 2024

A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 07 October 2019

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Abstract

There are great uncertainties in the projected economic impacts of climate change1, arising from uncertainties in the climate response2, the climate change mitigation pathway3 and the socioeconomic development pathway4. Although the relative contributions of these factors are important for climate change related decision-making, they are poorly understood. Here, we show to what extent the projected economic impacts of climate change can be attributed to these three factors. Our modelling framework consisting of global, multisectoral impact models coupled with an integrated assessment model enables us to estimate the global total economic impacts of climate change while incorporating these uncertainty sources. Whereas the most pessimistic pathway without mitigation would result in a net economic impact equivalent to 6.6% (3.9–8.6%) of global gross domestic product at the end of this century, the pathways with stringent mitigation would limit the impact to around or less than 1%. Although the uncertainties are great, the climate change mitigation pathway is the dominant factor and socioeconomic developments can also contribute to alleviate the impacts of climate change. These results suggest that decisions on mitigation and development have a great influence in determining the economic impacts of climate change, regardless of the uncertainties in the climate response.

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Fig. 1: Projected economic impact.
Fig. 2: Variance of the projected impact attributed to each factor.
Fig. 3: Proportion of attributed variance for sectoral impacts.
Fig. 4: Relationships of impact, vulnerability, temperature and SED.

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Data availability

Data required to reproduce the main results are available in the Supplementary Datasets and Code.

Code availability

Computer code required to reproduce the main results are available in Supplementary Datasets and Code.

Change history

  • 07 October 2019

    An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

  • 23 January 2024

    A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01930-6

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (no. S-14) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Social and Environmental Systems Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

    Jun’ya Takakura & Kiyoshi Takahashi

  2. Department of Environmental Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Shinichiro Fujimori

  3. Center for Climate Change Adaptation, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

    Naota Hanasaki & Yasuaki Hijioka

  4. College of Science and Engineering, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu, Japan

    Tomoko Hasegawa

  5. Department of Civil Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

    Yukiko Hirabayashi & Masahiro Tanoue

  6. Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Yasushi Honda

  7. Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Japan

    Toshichika Iizumi & Zhihong Shen

  8. Graduate School of Agriculture, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan

    Naoko Kumano

  9. Department of Landscape Architecture, College of Urban Science, University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea

    Chan Park

  10. Institute for Global Change Adaptation Science, Ibaraki University, Mito, Japan

    Makoto Tamura

  11. Nippon Koei, Tokyo, Japan

    Koujiro Tsuchida

  12. Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Japan

    Hiromune Yokoki

  13. School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China

    Qian Zhou

  14. Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Taikan Oki

  15. United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan

    Taikan Oki

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  1. Jun’ya Takakura
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Contributions

S.F., N.H., T.H., Y.Hirabayashi, Y.Honda, T.I., N.K., C.P., Z.S., K.Takahashi., J.T., M.Tamura., M.Tanoue, K.Tsuchida, H.Y. and Q.Z. conducted analyses on the sectoral impacts and provided the data. J.T. conducted the analysis of the aggregated impacts. J.T. and S.F. wrote the manuscript. T.O. and Y.Hijioka directed the study. All authors participated in the interpretation of the results, discussion and revising the draft of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun’ya Takakura.

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Competing interests

J.T. was employed by Toshiba Corporation, which is associated with the manufacture, sale, distribution and marketing of hydro/thermal power plants, until February 2016. K.Tsuchida has been employed by Nippon Koei, which is associated with consultation on natural disaster prevention (including fluvial flooding and coastal inundation) and on hydro/thermal power plants, since April 2019. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–23, Discussions 1–4, Tables 1–5, Methods 1–4 and references.

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Takakura, J., Fujimori, S., Hanasaki, N. et al. Dependence of economic impacts of climate change on anthropogenically directed pathways. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 737–741 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0578-6

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