Economic Impacts of Regional Nuclear War Due to Climatic Effects on Agriculture

We develop scenarios of a regional nuclear war and show that even a war between two new nuclear states using much less than 1% of the global nuclear arsenal could create climate change unprecedented in recorded human history, with reductions of agricultural production by 20-40% for 5 years following the event. Even after 9 years following the event, agriculture production continues to fall, with the accumulated production dropping by 56% and 59%, respectively, for corn and soybeans. In developing the scenarios, we work through climate, crop, and economic models and quantify the economic effect of these forcing factors, and discuss the implications of the climatic impact of nuclear war for the general public and the poor, within and between nations. The paper concludes with a variety of potential responses to the changes in agricultural markets, including behavioral changes such as migration and technological changes. The analysis compares the socioeconomic outcomes through a multimarket model and contrasts these outcomes with a computable general equilibrium model, an extension of the Environmental Impact and Sustainability Applied General Equilibrium Model– ENVISAGE –to better understand the implications of a nuclear event, with the differences between the two models attributed to economy wide spillover effects. The analysis not only documents potential socioeconomic impacts of a nuclear event, but it also shows that agro-economic modelers aiming to inform the agricultural and development policy debate require analysis on both economic behavior and biophysical drivers. More interdisciplinary modeling efforts are required to cross-fertilize. The conclusions derived in this work also emphasis the importance of estimating demand and supply parameters of major agricultural and energy commodities, and of updating these estimates overtime.