Watch video: Climate Change and the Economy of Aotearoa

Counting the cost of climate change

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution Network recently found that the heatwave which swept around the northern hemisphere this summer was made much more likely because of climate change. Indeed, they argue that the heat measured in July would have been “virtually impossible to occur” in the US/Mexico region and Southern Europe but for the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses. This may be the year when, all over the world, it becomes obvious to people that the costs of doing nothing to mitigate climate change – the costs of the storms, the floods, the droughts and the heatwaves – are orders of magnitude greater than the costs of transitioning to a net zero emissions economy.

About Dr Ilan Noy

Dr Ilan Noy is an expert on the economic impacts of disasters. Ilan is a professor of economics who holds – Te Āwhionukurangi – the Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change at Te Herenga Waka (the Victoria University of Wellington). Dr Noy and his team focus on the research and application of economics to the  management of natural and climate-change induced hazards and disasters. New Zealand is lucky to have Ilan, and we are especially lucky that he is prepared to present
to us something of his knowledge of calculating and assessing:

• global and local costs and economic losses attributable to extreme weather;
• physical and transitional, and also adaptational, costs and economic risks; and
• economics of effectively targeted and traded carbon credits.