Impacts
Economic
In November 2000 Dr. Andrew Dlugolecki, director of general insurance development at CGNU, the UK’s largest insurance group, released a report estimating that the impact of climate change could bankrupt the global economy by 2065.
Food and Water
Climate change will cause food and water shortages in certain areas. For example, rice production in China is predicted to fall one fifth by 2080. Two out of every three people in the world will be facing water shortages by 2025.
Extreme Weather
The frequency of extreme weather events is predicted to increase and there is evidence of this occurring already. The 2005 hurricane season broke virtually every record including 27 named storms and the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin.
HEALTH
Climate change will increase the incidence of deaths from extreme weather events and disease. A rise in temperature of 2-3°C could increase the number of people at risk of malaria by around 3-5%, i.e. several hundred million people.
Sea Level Rise
Virtually every glacier in the world has been retreating over the past century. Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps are now loosing a combined 20 billion tons of ice to the oceans each year. Sea level is predicted to rise by up to 0.88m by 2100. Over 17 million people in Bangladesh live at an elevation of less than 1.5m above sea level. The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has already drawn up evacuation plans with New Zealand amid concerns of inundation by the sea.
Thermohaline Circulation Collapse
The THC (commonly known as the Gulf Stream) transports the equivalent heat output of a million power stations and warms the climate by up to 5°C in northwest Europe. Due to increased runoff from high latitude rivers and increased freshwater input from melting ice there is a possibility this oceanic current may collapse. There is already evidence it is beginning to weaken.
Nature
Enormous vegetation changes are predicted to occur. This will impact on biodiversity and a recent study has found that climate change threatens more than 1 million species with extinction by 2050.
