06/08/2020

Rising Temperatures Will Cause More Deaths Than All Infectious Diseases – Study

The Guardian - 

Poorer, hotter parts of the world will struggle to adapt to unbearable conditions, research finds

A woman drinks as children cool off in a public fountain in Milan, Italy, on 31 July. 2020 is set to be hottest or second hottest on record, in line with the longer-term trend of rising temperatures. Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP

The growing but largely unrecognized death toll from rising global temperatures will come close to eclipsing the current number of deaths from all the infectious diseases combined if planet-heating emissions are not constrained, a major new study has found.

Rising temperatures are set to cause particular devastation in poorer, hotter parts of the world that will struggle to adapt to unbearable conditions that will kill increasing numbers of people, the research has found.

The economic loss from the climate crisis, as well as the cost of adaptation, will be felt around the world, including in wealthy countries.

In a high-emissions scenario where little is done to curb planet-heating gases, global mortality rates will be raised by 73 deaths per 100,000 people by the end of the century. This nearly matches the current death toll from all infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, HIV/Aids, malaria, dengue and yellow fever.

The research used an enormous global dataset of death and temperature records to see how they are related, gathering not only direct causes such as heatstroke but also less obvious links such as a surge in heart attacks during a heatwave.

“A lot of older people die due to indirect heat affects,” said Amir Jina, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. “It’s eerily similar to Covid – vulnerable people are those who have pre-existing or underlying conditions. If you have a heart problem and are hammered for days by the heat, you are going to be pushed towards collapse.”

Poorer societies that occupy the hottest areas of the world are set to suffer worst. As already baking temperatures climb further this century, countries such as Ghana, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan face an additional 200 or more deaths per 100,000 people.

Colder, richer countries such as Norway and Canada, meanwhile, will see a drop in deaths as fewer and fewer people perish due to extreme cold.

“You see the really bad impacts at the tropics,” said Jina. “There’s not one single worldwide condition, there’s a lot of different changes with poorer people much more affected with limited ability to adapt. The richer countries, even if they have increases in mortality, can pay more to adapt to it. It’s really the people who have done the least to cause climate change who are suffering from it.”

Huge heatwaves have roiled the US, Europe, Australia, India, the Arctic and elsewhere in recent years, while 2020 is set to be hottest or second hottest on record, in line with the longer-term trend of rising temperatures.

The deaths resulting from this heat are sometimes plain enough to generate attention, such as the fact that 1,500 people who died in France from the hot temperatures during summer last year.

Within richer countries, places already used to the heat will have an adaptation head start on areas only now starting to experience scorching conditions. “A really hot day in Seattle is more damaging than a really hot day in Houston because air conditioning and other measures are less widespread there,” said Bob Kopp, a co-author and climate scientist at Rutgers University.

“It’s not going to be free for Seattle to get the resilience Houston has. Obviously in poorer countries the situation is much worse. Climate change is a public health issue and an equality issue.”

The economic cost of these deaths is set to be severe, costing the world 3.2% of global economic output by the end of the century if emissions are not tamed. Each ton of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted will cost $36.60 in damage in this high-emissions world, the researchers calculated.

This worst-case scenario would involve emissions continue to grow without restraint, causing the average global temperature increase to surpass 3C by 2100.

The world has heated up by about 1C, on average, since the dawn of mass industrialization, an increase scientists say is fueling increasingly severe heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods.

A more moderate path, where emissions are rapidly cut, will see temperature-related deaths less than a third of the more severe scenario, the researchers found. The economic costs will be significantly lower, too.

“It’s plausible that we could have the worst-case scenario and that would involve drastic measures such as lots of people migrating,” said Jina. “Much like when Covid overwhelms a healthcare system, it’s hard to tell what will happen when climate change will put systems under pressure like that. We need to understand the risk and invest to mitigate that risk, before we really start to notice the impacts.”

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(AU) Flooding Could Occur Daily In Sydney By The End Of This Century Because Of Climate Change

The Guardian - 

Human-caused sea level rise likely caused eight out of 10 floods in the region between 1970 and 2015, a study finds

If greenhouse gas emissions remain high and no measures are taken to adapt to rising sea levels then flooding events will be a daily occurrence in Sydney by the end of the century, a study says. Photograph: James Gourley/AAP

Flooding in localised areas around Sydney will happen almost every week by the middle of this century because of human-caused sea level rise, according to a study by scientists at the Bureau of Meteorology.

The frequency of flooding around parks, gardens and footpaths had already gone up from less than two days per year in 1914 to a present day rate of about eight days per year, the study found.

If greenhouse gas emissions remained high and no measures were taken to adapt to rising sea levels then flooding events caused simply by tides would be a daily occurrence in Sydney by the end of the century, the study found.

Published in the journal Earth’s Future, the study concluded that between 1970 and 2015, human-caused sea level rise had likely been the cause of eight out of 10 flooding events in the Sydney region.

Minor inundation had occurred on 248 days since 1970, the study found, but 203 of those days of minor flooding would not have happened without sea level rise.

Human-caused global heating has caused sea levels to rise because as oceans warm up, they expand and take up more space. The melting of ice attached to the land – such as ice sheets and glaciers – also raises sea levels.

Ben Hague, a climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology who led the study, said: “What we are talking about here [is] the flooding of streets and car parks and gardens like December 2017 when parts of the Royal Botanic gardens were flooded.”

Examples given in the study include the flooding of jetties and gardens at Browns Bay, Woolloomooloo and Elizabeth Bay in January 2014; flooded roads at Como in 2013 and major flooding of roads at Ku-ring-gai in January 2018.


As well as analysing past minor flooding events, the study also looked at projections of sea level rise for the future to work out how often these flooding events would happen.

The study, which included scientists from Monash University, did not account for flooding events exacerbated by storm surges coinciding with high tides.

“All the estimates for 2050 are around weekly flooding with a low [greenhouse gas] emissions scenario, where we expect about 47 days per year and, for a higher emissions scenario, about 70 days per year.”

By the end of the century, if emissions were reduced dramatically then flooding would occur “every second day”, Hague said, but if emissions were allowed to continue at current high rates then flooding would be a daily occurrence in the Sydney area.


Hague said the results in the study presumed that no structural or engineering measures were taken to adapt to the flooding.

“But we hope this study helps to improve risk assessments and forecasts and increases our resilience to coastal floods in the future,” he said.

According to a 2019 United Nations report on climate change and the oceans, the world’s sea levels will be rising faster by the end of the century even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced quickly.

Sea levels will rise by between 43cm and 84cm by the end of the century from their average levels between 1986 and 2005, depending on how much CO2 is emitted.

A study in July found that combining rising sea levels with storm surges and high tides would likely expose an extra 23 million people around the world to coastal flooding in the next 30 years, even if greenhouse gas emissions were cut dramatically.

Prof John Church, an expert on sea level rise at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said the findings of the study of Sydney flooding were broadly consistent with previous studies.


Professor John Church explains the key issues of rising sea levels in this Australian Academy of Science. 

 He said: “The big uncertainties in future sea level rise are really the large-scale issues – climate sensitivity, the future of the ice sheets, and the regional distribution of sea level rise – rather than local issues. Of course local authorities need to be aware of the various local issues, including subsidence.

“The general message here is absolutely correct – I have been stating for many years now that the historical one-in-100 year coastal flooding event will be occurring several times a year by 2100 in some locations for high emission scenarios.

“This is clearly something we are going to have to deal with. This is the very important aspect of climate change and particularly sea level rise that I have argued for – while the impact today maybe moderate, if we take no action we are locking in very significant impacts in the future. And of course sea level rise does not stop in 2100.”

Prof Matthew England, an oceanographer also at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, said the study was “credible”, adding that melting ice sheets could push sea levels even higher than current projections.

“The numbers are already confronting and just with the thermal expansion of the oceans can make inundation a daily event.”

Prof Kurt Lambeck, of the Australian National University, said the most serious issue related to sea level rise would be how it interacted with an increase in the magnitude of storms.

“The underlying cause of the anthropogenic sea level change is the rising global temperature. Action on that is required to reduce the likelihood that current rates of sea level rise do not accelerate.”

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(AU) How Climate Change Is Contributing To Soaring Insurance Costs

Canberra Times - Karl Mallon

Photo: Shutterstock

Dr Karl Mallon is an international climate risk analyst for governments, banks and the private sector based in Newcastle.
Many regional Australians are facing significant insurance delays for damage caused to properties during Black Summer's devastating bushfires.

Others did not have insurance at all.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, some 1.8 million households hold no home insurance whatsoever. Sadly, our analysis of climate change strongly indicates this figure will rise.

Our changing climate is making events like floods and bushfires worse, inevitably increasing insurance premiums. Many homes will become too expensive to insure or, like in the US, some insurers may refuse to cover these hazards at all.

Insurance cost impacts hit less wealthy Australians hardest.

Our analysis shows the flood risk has already increased by 20 per cent in parts of NSW and Queensland due to climate change.

Insurance premiums of $15,000 per year, about one quarter of Australia's median wage, are now becoming normal in such places.

Farmers in bushfire-prone areas say they are facing increasing premiums too.

Our modelling shows that premiums will increase further for farms in bushfire zones, with some farmers placed in potentially untenable financial situations through no fault of their own. So what do we do?

I was one of the 150-plus experts and affected community advocates who contributed to the Australian Bushfire and Climate Plan, devised over the past two months at the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action-convened national summit.

The plan outlines 165 recommendations to address the escalating severity and scale of bushfires.

We must act promptly and decisively to help families, farmers and also insurers. Insurance availability and affordability in bushfire-prone areas will depend on the whole of society investment we make now.

There are three key ways to ensure this happens.

First, we must massively improve our ability to predict and fight bad fire seasons by investing in on-ground and aerial firefighting capabilities.

Second, we must assist families and businesses to make properties as resilient as possible. These people are the victims, not the villains of climate change, so it's only fair that governments cover upgrade costs.

Finally, the first two actions will only work if we halt rising temperatures and deliver a low carbon economy quickly.

We can keep bushfire risk manageable and insurance costs affordable. The alternative is to turn our back on bush communities and rural economies.

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