The Cost of Climate Change in Europe

Abstract

Climate change has the potential to lead to major impacts and economic costs in Europe. This chapter reports on a recent regional assessment—the ClimateCost project—which has combined sectoral assessments and wider economic analysis to derive such estimates.

The results reveal potentially high economic costs from climate change in Europe, though these vary with the emission scenario and time period. While many of these impacts are projected to be adverse and lead to economic costs, there are also economic benefits. The results also show large differences in the patterns of impacts across Europe, with more negative impacts in South-Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, due to a combination of the enhanced climate signal and the higher vulnerability in these regions. The analysis of different scenarios shows that mitigation (towards a 2 °C stabilisation scenario) would reduce these costs significantly, but only in the medium-long term (after 2040). There will therefore be a need for adaptation as well as mitigation, but given the high future uncertainty, this is likely to be best advanced through a framework of adaptive management.

While this European-wide view is important, the chapter also shows there is a need for country level analysis—as presented in this book—to capture national context and insights, to allow analysis of country specific risks, and to provide national-level information to start planning for adaptation.

The research leading to the results reported in this paper received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, as part of the ClimateCost Project (Full Costs of Climate Change, Grant Agreement 212774) www.climatecost.eu. Additional support for the paper was provided by funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) IMPACT2C Project: Quantifying projected impacts under 2 °C warming, grant agreement no. 282746.