Skip Navigation

Climate Change and Human Health Literature Portal Economy-wide impacts of climate change: A joint analysis for sea level rise and tourism

Climate Change and Human Health Literature Portal

Bigano A, Bosello F, Roson R, Tol RSJ
2008
Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 13 (8): 765-791

While climate change impacts on human life have well defined and different origins, the interactions among the diverse impacts are not yet fully understood. Their final effects, however, especially those involving social-economic responses, are likely to play an important role. This paper is one of the first attempts to disentangle and highlight the role of these interactions. It focuses on the economic assessment of two specific climate change impacts: sea-level rise and changes in tourism flows. By using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model the two impacts categories are first analysed separately and then jointly. Considered separately, in 2050, the forecasted 25 cm. of sea level rise imply a GDP loss ranging from (-) 0.1% in South East Asia to almost no loss in Canada, while redistribution of tourism flows - which in terms of arrivals favours Western Europe, Japan, Korea and Canada and penalises all the other world regions - triggers GDP losses ranging from (-) 0.5% in Small Island States to (-) 0.0004% in Canada. GDP gainers are Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Middle East and South Asia. The impact of sea level rise and tourism were simulated jointly and the results compared with those of the two disjoint simulations. From a qualitative point of view, the joint effects are similar to the outcomes of the disjoint exercises; from a quantitative perspective, however, impact interaction does play a significant role. In six cases out of 16 there is a detectable (higher than 2% and peaking to 70%) difference between the sum of the outcomes in the disjoint simulation and the outcomes of the joint simulations. Moreover, the relative contribution of each single impact category has been disentangled from the final result. In the case under scrutiny, demand shocks induced by changes in tourism flows outweigh the supply-side shock induced by the loss of coastal land.

Expand Abstract

Resource Description

    Sea Level Rise
    Ocean/Coastal
    Global or Unspecified Location
    General Health Impact
    Cost/Economic Impact Prediction
    Long-Term (>10 years)
    Research Article
    Special Report on Emissions Scenario (SRES)
Back
to Top