Climate change impacts are already damaging economies, particularly in lower-income countries, and finance ministries should prioritise investments in adaptation and resilience to limit further harm, according to new analysis by the Institute.

Energy is essential for sustainable economic growth and improved human welfare. Nuclear energy provides access to clean, reliable and affordable energy, mitigating the negative impacts of climate change. It is a significant part of the world energy mix and its use is expected to grow in the coming decades.

Many of the world's saline lakes are shrinking at alarming rates, reducing waterbird habitat and economic benefits while threatening human health. Saline lakes are long-term basin-wide integrators of climatic conditions that shrink and grow with natural climatic variation. In contrast, water withdrawals for human use exert a sustained reduction in lake inflows and levels. Quantifying the relative contributions of natural variability and human impacts to lake inflows is needed to preserve these lakes. With a credible water balance, causes of lake decline from water diversions or climate variability can be identified and the inflow needed to maintain lake health can be defined. Without a water balance, natural variability can be an excuse for inaction. Here we describe the decline of several of the world's large saline lakes and use a water balance for Great Salt Lake (USA) to demonstrate that consumptive water use rather than long-term climate change has greatly reduced its size. The inflow needed to maintain bird habitat, support lake-related industries and prevent dust storms that threaten human health and agriculture can be identified and provides the information to evaluate the difficult tradeoffs between direct benefits of consumptive water use and ecosystem services provided by saline lakes.

Economic analysis of climate change uses economic tools and models to calculate the scale and distribution of damages caused by climate change. It can also give guidance for the best policies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change from an economic perspective. There are many economic models and frameworks. For example, in a cost–benefit analysis, the trade offs between climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation are made explicit. For this kind of analysis, integrated assessment models (IAMs) are useful. Those models link main features of society and economy with the biosphere and atmosphere into one modelling framework. In general, climate damages increase the more the global surface temperature increases. Many effects of climate change are linked to market transactions and therefore directly affect metrics like GDP or inflation. For instance, climate change can drive inflation in food via heat and droughts, but also drives up overall inflation. There are also non-market impacts which are harder to translate into economic costs. These include the impacts of climate change on human health, biomes and ecosystem services. Economic analysis also...

As we near the end of 2024, the effects of climate change are increasingly shaping educational priorities and practices across the United States. Schools at all levels are grappling with how to prepare students for a world profoundly affected by environmental changes while also adapting their own operations to be more sustainable. Climate change education has become a core component of many school curricula, integrated across multiple subjects rather than confined to science classes. Students are learning about the scientific principles behind climate change, its social and economic impacts, and potential solutions. There’s a growing emphasis on project-based learning, with […]

The impact on global GDP is likely six times greater than previously estimated.

This is the landing page for the economic analysis of climate change issues at EPA. The page links to EPA's Non-CO2 Analysis reports, published EPA Non-CO2 GHG reports, and economy-wide legislative analyses.