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The report’s conclusion: One of the primary impacts of climate change in the U.S. will be that the poor become poorer.
Those least able to adapt will be hardest hit, says Robert Kopp, who spoke to VOA via Skype. “This announces that they would bring about the illustration that economic risk within the U.S. falls differentially hard on poorer counties.Because poorer counties tend to be in the warmer parts of the country.”
Those are the red areas in this map, which shows the economic impact of rising temperatures.The greener areas are expected to benefit.“In the past, we’ve tended to think of the United States like a single entity that will all benefit or lose together.But in fact, we see it is a widening inequality as a result of climate change.”
Still, everyone suffers for each degree Celsius of temperature rise.The prediction is that the U.S. will lose about 1.2 percent of its gross domestic product.
“So in the south where it’s hot and along the coast, we might see populations losing the equivalent of 20 percent of their income.Whereas in the cooler northern and western regions, we actually see the populations might benefit a little.”
Both researchers VOA spoke to say the biggest impact will be felt in the health care industry.“When we achieve really high temperatures, especially in the southern regions in the United States,we are going to see many more people are exposed to heat stress and suffer more mortality in ways that society is really... spends a lot of money to avoid.”
The team says their research published in the journal Science should help U.S. policy-makers focus their efforts on the parts of the economy that will need the most help.They hope to have similar information for the rest of the world soon.
“But in terms of research,our next big step is to take this framework of using the detailed climate models and historical responses to climate variability,to a global scale.”All of their research and their maps can be found online at impactlab.org.
Kevin Enochs, VOA News.
