Part Three / How it Affects Us

3.20 The True Cost of Climate Change

All online sources accessed on

  1. one quarter of 1 per cent of GDP Nordhaus, W. D., ‘Rolling the “DICE”: an optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases’‘Rolling the “DICE”: an optimal transition path for controlling greenhouse gases’, Resource and Energy Economics, 15 (1), 1993, 27–50, https://doi.org/10.1016/0928-7655(93)90017-O.

  2. the global economic toll of 2°C of warming would be $69 trillion Lafakis, C., et al., The Economic Implications of Climate Change, Moody’s Analytics, June 2021, https://www.moodysanalytics.com/-/media/article/2019/economic-implications-of-climate-change.pdf.

    three times more economic damage than the Covid pandemic Guo, J., et al., The Economics of Climate Change: No Action Not an Option, Swiss Re Institute, April 2021, https://www.swissre.com/dam/jcr:e73ee7c3-7f83-4c17-a2b8-8ef23a8d3312/swiss-re-institute-expertise-publication-economics-of-climate-change.pdf.

  3. In the second decade, that number rose to $3 trillion Aon, Weather Climate and Catastrophe Insight: 2019 Annual Report, 2019, https://www.aon.com/global-weather-catastrophe-natural-disasters-costs-climate-change-2019-annual-report/index.html?utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=mediarelease&utm_campaign=natcat20.