It can be extremely difficult to measure how clean water, healthy forests, biodiversity, and air to breathe all contribute to people’s well-being. Scientists, economists, and decision-makers refer to the flow of advantages that people currently and, in the future, derive from the natural resources of the planet as “natural capital.”
Profound Inequalities
Economic conditions deteriorate as countries lose their natural capital. According to the study, by 2100, the gross domestic product (GDP) of every nation examined will have decreased by an average of 1.3% due to changes in flora, rainfall patterns, and increased CO2. Significant disparities in how these effects were distributed were also discovered.
“Our research found that the world’s poorest 50% of countries and regions are expected to bear a staggering 90% of the GDP damages. In sharp contrast, the losses for the wealthiest 10% might be limited to just 2%,” Bastien-Olvera added.
According to the authors, the main reason for this is that countries with lower incomes often depend more on natural resources for economic output and have a higher proportion of wealth in the form of natural capital.
Natural and Economic Values
The study’s authors estimated the effects of climate change on countries’ ecosystem services, economic output, and natural capital stocks using global vegetation models, climate models, and World Bank estimations of natural capital values.
Given that the investigation only took into account land-based systems, namely grasslands and forests, these predictions could be conservative. In further studies, Bastien-Olvera intends to examine the effects on marine ecosystems. Additionally, the study did not take disturbances like wildfires or insect-driven tree mortality into consideration.
Accounting for Nature
The overall results highlight how critical it is to develop climate policies that take into consideration the unique values that every country obtains from its natural systems.
With this study, we are embedding natural systems and human well-being within an economic framework. Our economy and well-being depend on these systems, and we should recognize and account for these overlooked damages when we consider the cost of a changing climate.
Frances C. Moore, Study Senior Author and Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis
National Science Foundation funded the study.
Thanks to the efforts of this research team, we now know that damage to ecosystems impacts human well-being in ways that are both measurable and wildly disproportionate across populations. The results will be critical to abating economic losses in the coming decades.
Jeffrey Mantz, NSF Program Officer
Journal Reference:
Bastien-Olvera, B. A., et. al. (2023) Unequal climate impacts on global values of natural capital. Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06769-z