Climate change will lead to a small drop in global spending on energy by the end of the century, but many middle-income countries, including India, face a rise in these costs as people turn to air conditioning to keep cool, a study suggests.
The research by a US and Chinese team contradicts some past studies that suggested higher spending on energy .
鈥淭he actual global cost in energy consumption is much lower than people had previously thought. A lot of days, people are expecting every study to come out and say climate change is way worse than we expected [but that鈥檚 not the case here],鈥� says at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the study鈥檚 authors.
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However, he says the team鈥檚 other key finding is the unequal burden of future spending in different countries.
Instead of extrapolating from one country鈥檚 energy use to a global picture, as some previous research has done, Hsiang and his colleagues collected data on income, temperature and energy consumption for 146 countries from 1971 to 2010. They used that to build a model of how energy spending will change by 2099 in 24,000 geographic areas 鈥� each about the size of a US county 鈥� under two widely-used climate scenarios.
The high emissions scenario would see a small saving equivalent to 0.17 per cent of global GDP in 2099. For a lower emissions scenario 鈥� closer to what the world is on path for 鈥� there would be a more modest fall on a par with 0.08 of 2099鈥檚 GDP. Today鈥檚 high-income countries are expected to see the biggest savings, as milder winters reduce their heating needs.
Meanwhile, middle-income areas in the tropics and subtropics, including parts of China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, will spend much more due to 鈥渄ramatically鈥� increased electrical energy demands for cooling, the study authors write. Many low-income countries are expected to be too poor by 2099 to spend more on energy, the authors write.
鈥淲hen you start thinking about [electricity] infrastructure planning, anyone who鈥檚 basically in the middle of the map [the tropics and subtropics] needs to ask if they can cope with this [extra demand due to climate change],鈥� says Hsiang. 鈥淭here鈥檚 an infrastructure planning element to it that is blinking red.鈥�
The study makes some assumptions that leave its findings open to challenge. It assumes real energy price growth of 1.4 per cent a year after accounting for inflation and that the energy mix in 2099 will be the same as today, rather than a transformational shift being made away from fossil fuels as countries have pledged to do.
at University College London says energy spending could look quite different if a shift to more wind and solar power cuts electricity costs. 鈥淵ou could imagine that electricity could be extremely cheap in 2100 and therefore costs not being a barrier to lower-income [groups],鈥� he says.
Nature
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