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The impacts of climate change according to the IPCC

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  • Richard S. J. Tol

    (Department of Economics, University of Sussex, UK
    Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
    Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Abstract

I assessed five statements in the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of Working Group II (WG2) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s assessment of the impacts of climate change on agriculture all but ignores human agency and human ingenuity. The statement in the SPM on violent conflict is much stronger than in the chapter and indeed the literature. AR5 ignores the literature on the impacts of climate change on cold-related mortality and morbidity. On poverty traps, WG2 reaches a conclusion that is not supported by the cited papers. The total impacts of climate change were assessed in four subsequent IPCC report. Although there are no statistically significant differences between the assessment periods in the underlying literature, the subsequent SPMs reach very different conclusions. In sum, the IPCC has yet to reach the quality that one would expect from a gold standard.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard S. J. Tol, 2015. "The impacts of climate change according to the IPCC," Working Paper Series 7815, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:sus:susewp:7815
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Xue, Ruoyu & Wang, Shanshan & Long, Wenqi & Gao, Gengyu & Liu, Donghui & Zhang, Ruiqin, 2021. "Uncovering GHG emission characteristics of industrial parks in Central China via emission inventory and cluster analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Feng, Jing-Chun & Yan, Jinyue & Yu, Zhi & Zeng, Xuelan & Xu, Weijia, 2018. "Case study of an industrial park toward zero carbon emission," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 65-78.
    5. David Archer & Edwin Kite & Greg Lusk, 2020. "The ultimate cost of carbon," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 2069-2086, October.
    6. Chris Jeffords & Alexi Thompson, 2016. "An empirical analysis of fatal crimes against environmental and land activists," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(2), pages 827-842.
    7. D. A. Sabӑu & Gh. Şerban & P. Breţcan & D. Dunea & D. Petrea & I. Rus & D. Tanislav, 2023. "Combining radar quantitative precipitation estimates (QPEs) with distributed hydrological model for controlling transit of flash-flood upstream of crowded human habitats in Romania," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 116(1), pages 1209-1238, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Climate change; impacts; IPCC; agriculture; health; poverty; violent conflict; total economic impact;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

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