Future economic damage from climate change would be caused mostly by gradual warming that affects labor output, farm productivity and migration — and not so much from natural disasters, a new report says.
A paper by data provider Moody’s Analytics says that in a worst-case scenario, climate change would cut U.S. economic output by 9.5 percent in 2050 compared to a moderate-case climate scenario.
Weather-related disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, which climate change and development have made more destructive, would cause one-third of the economic loss.
But two-thirds would result from changes such as increased heat stress that would reduce output of outdoors workers and worsen health problems such as hypertension and infectious disease, idling more laborers.