Moody’s Analytics predicts climate change costs up to $69 trillion by 2100: report

Moody’s Analytics estimates climate change impacts will cost the global economy up to $69 trillion by the end of the century, The Washington Post reported Wednesday. 

The consulting firm predicts rising temperatures and extreme weather events will disrupt productivity and damage infrastructure, hitting the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa the hardest. 

The $69 trillion estimate is derived assuming warming hits the 2 degree Celsius threshold, which is seen as the limit to stem climate change’s most dire effects, according to the Post.

{mosads}A lesser warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, would reportedly cost $54 trillion in damages by 2100.

Moody’s said an increase above the 2 degree threshold could “hit tipping points for even larger and irreversible warming feedback loops such as permanent summer ice melt in the Arctic Ocean,” according to the Post. 

Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi told the newspaper that the impact won’t be an immediate “shock to the economy,” describing it more “like a corrosive” that gets “weightier with each passing year.”

Climate change impacts will harm human health, labor productivity, crop yields and tourism, leading to the overall future costs, according to the report. 

For example, “water- and vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever will likely be the largest direct effect of changes in human health and the associated productivity loss,” the report says. And rising temperatures will allow mosquitoes, ticks and fleas to move to new areas, resulting in more sick days, according to the Post. 

The Hill has reached out to Moody’s Analytics for comment.