UK set for high end climate costs, as floods spread

UK is likely to feel bigger costs from climate change than most other EU countries, a report concludes.

Rising sea levels are likely to impact the nation harder than most, negating economic benefits from increased tourism and possibly farm yields.

The findings come from a study funded by the European Commission, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

It projects a net cost for most EU nations, but a net benefit for a few.

Scandinavian countries and the Baltic states should be better off, it finds, largely through increased opportunities for agriculture.

Researchers looked at climatic conditions likely to apply in 2080, and asked how present-day economies would fare if those climatic conditions were here now.

It addresses five issues - agriculture, river floods, coastal areas, tourism and human health - which the team acknowledges is a limitation.

"We know little at EU level or at member state level about implications of climate change in the economy," said Juan-Carlos Ciscar from the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, Spain.

"Climate change is happening, we need to adapt to it, so we need to know which sectors will be affected and why so we can establish adaptation policies - which means minimising impacts, but also taking advantage of opportunities," he told BBC News.

Southern accent
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If things changed more we could introduce crops and systems more fitting now to a Mediterranean climate - grapes, for example”
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Professor Ana Iglesias

Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
In 2004, the European Council asked the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) to analyse these costs and benefits as far as possible.

Dr Ciscar's institute is part of the JRC and led the project, which involved commissioning new models of some types of climate impact.

Overall, they calculate, EU citizens would be on average 0.2-1.0% worse off were climatic conditions projected for 2080 to apply now.

But that headline figure conceals big regional differences.

To simplify matters a little, they divided EU nations into five geographical blocs: southern Europe, central Europe south, central Europe north, northern Europe, and the British Isles.

The most heavily affected region is southern Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria), for which the models project drops in agricultural yield of up to a quarter, major increases in coastal flooding, and a small drop in tourism revenue.

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UK Climate Change Bill set to become law

The UK Climate Change Bill passed another hurdle last night as MPs voted by a massive majority of 460 to back the amended bill. The legislation now passes to the House of Lords for approval, and is expected to become law before the end of the year.

The bill includes the UK government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and will see the inclusion of shipping and aviation emissions in the targets once a suitable method for measuring international emissions has been determined.