Appraising the socio-economic impacts of climate change for Finland. FINADAPT Working Paper 12

This report discusses the findings of a quick scan type of study of the social-economic effects of climate change for Finland during the 21st century. From a Finnish domestic economic viewpoint the impacts of climate change on Finland are probably rather modest and in aggregate could even be slightly positive on average for the 21st century, provided that climate change does not cause extreme events such as disruption of the Gulf Stream. The order of magnitude of the aggregate effects, however incomplete these are at this stage, amount to less than 0.1% change in GDP. The increase in annual variations of climate change effects and consequent risks putting the resilience of the economy and key infrastructure to test seem to be of more concern than the above mentioned average impacts. The extent to which benefits can be actually exploited and costs attenuated depends in many cases also on public and private policies outside the realm of climate policy. Examples are policies for agriculture, forestry, and urban and national spatial planning. The report proposes several social-economic research themes to be taken up in order to be better prepared for more thorough support of future strategies dealing with climate change