Climate Impacts in Europe. The JRC PESETA II Project

Abstract

The objective of the JRC PESETA II project is to gain insights into the sectoral and regional patterns of climate change impacts in\nEurope by the end of this century. The study uses a large set of climate model runs and impact categories (ten categories:\nagriculture, energy, river floods, droughts, forest fires, transport infrastructure, coasts, tourism, habitat suitability of forest tree\nspecies and human health). The project integrates biophysical direct climate impacts (from eight of the impact categories) into a\nmacroeconomic economic model, which enables the comparison of the different impacts based on common metrics (household\nwelfare and economic activity).\nIf the 2080s climate would happen today and without public adaptation, the EU household welfare losses would amount to\naround €190 billion, almost 2% of EU GDP. The geographical distribution of the climate damages is very asymmetric with a\nclear bias towards the southern European regions. More than half of the overall EU damages are estimated to be due to\nadditional premature mortality (€120 billion). Moving to a 2°C world would reduce climate damages by €60 billion, to €120\nbillion (1.2% of GDP).