Climate change impacts in Europe. Final report of the PESETA research project

Little is known about the potential impacts of climate change on the European economy in particular with respect to different economic sectors of interest and geographical regions of concern, necessary to design and prioritise adaptation strategies, as noted by the European Commission White Paper on Adaptation. Here we integrate a set of coherent climate change projections and physical models into an economic modelling framework to quantify the impacts of climate change on vulnerable aspects of Europe, four market impact categories: agriculture, river basins, coastal areas, and tourism; and one non-market category, human health. Considering the market impacts, if the climate of the 2080s would occur today the EU annual welfare loss would be in the range of 0.2% to 1%, depending on the climate future. However, there is large variation across different climate futures, EU regions and impact categories. Scenarios with warmer temperatures and higher sea level rise result in more severe economic damage for the EU. Southern Europe, the British Isles and Central Europe North appear to be the most sensitive regions to climate change. Northern Europe, on the other hand, is the only region with net economic benefits, mainly driven by the positive effects in agriculture. Concerning their contribution to the overall effects, coastal systems, agriculture and river flooding are the most important of the four impacts assessed.JRC.J.2-The economics of climate change, energy and transpor