Climate Change Estimated To Cost California Tens Of Billions
Posted on: Thursday, 2 April 2009, 13:40 CDT
A draft report released Wednesday finds that California may face tens of billions of dollars in annual expenses due to climate change if global initiatives to slow the Earth's heating are not successful."Climate change will impose substantial costs to Californians in the order of tens of billions of dollars annually," said the draft report, authored by the Climate Action Team.
However, "costs will be substantially lower if global emissions of greenhouse gases are curtailed.”
California currently leads the nation in setting climate change targets, seeking to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
The current report includes a summary of 37 climate change studies, and is the latest in a series of reports published by the state every two to three years.
"On the whole, I am actually less optimistic," said Michael Hanemann, an author of the report and an economist co-director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
"As you fill in the detail, the whole gets worse," Hanemann told Reuters.
Although water-starved cities may be able to purchase water from farmers, and high-altitude forests are predicted to benefit for most of the century as trees enjoy the warmer weather, long-term studies seeking to understand the impacts of climate change suggest the costs will be higher than many expected.
Top concerns include the potential loss of $100 billion from flooding throughout the San Francisco Bay brought about by rising sea levels.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is seeking voter approval for billions of dollars in bonds to build fresh water projects, focused on water scarcity.
"Today's new research reveals that California's severe drought conditions are only a preview of what is likely to come because of our changing climate," said Schwarzenegger in a statement.
While rising temperatures may actually increase output of some crops, water will remain a limiting factor. However, the study’s authors concluded that the impact of climate change on the water sector itself could be muted.
But Hanemann said studies conducted to date erroneously assumed a perfect market where cities could purchase extra water from farms .
One of the more significant changes predicted in the new report is a 55 percent rise in electricity demand by the end of the century. The forecast was based on an hourly review of the state’s energy use.
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University of California, Berkeley
Source: redOrbit Staff
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