Eagle News International — Climate economists are warning that trillions of dollars’ worth of financial assets may be under threat from global warming’s effects by 2100.
A team warned that if warming reaches 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial revolution levels by 2100; investments worth some $2.5 trillion dollars may be in danger.
This was equal to half the current estimated stock market value of fossil-fuel companies.
But even if the 2 degrees Celsius warming agreed by the world’s nations in Paris last December is achieved, the value of assets at risk would be $1.7 trillion, they wrote in the journal nature climate change.
Climate change can destroy assets directly through sea-level rise for example, by depreciating their value, or by disrupting economic activities lower down the chain through drought or freak storms.
The projections, using mathematical models, were based on an estimated value of $143.3 trillion for global non-bank financial assets in 2013, as determined by the financial stability board watchdog.
At warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius—they wrote—some 1.8 percent of global financial assets could be at risk.
But this could rise to as much as $24 trillion in worst-case-scenario warming.
