## SLOW BURN — The Hidden Costs of a Warming World (book review)

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [SLOW BURN — The Hidden Costs of a Warming World (book review)](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-black.pdf)

## Other formats

- [Markdown version](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-black.pdf.md)
- [Structured JSON version](/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-black.pdf.json)

---

### Framing and urgency
- Climate change characterized as “one of the most significant threats facing the global economy.”
- World Meteorological Organization projection cited: temperatures likely to increase to more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels within the coming five years.
- With moderate strengthening of global mitigation policy, temperatures are expected to increase by more than 3°C by 2100.
- Survey evidence cited: two-thirds of the global population believe that climate change is a global emergency.

### Core thesis and contributions
- Park documents “slow-burning” effects of warming already occurring, distinct from catastrophic tipping-point narratives.
- Emphasis on effects ranging from widely expected (worsening inequality) to less expected (declining productivity and economic growth).
- Central claim: heat can significantly hinder human performance across contexts, affecting standardized exams, professional tennis, and manufacturing, and thus firm profitability and national economic outcomes.
- Climate change will create economic “winners (those able to adapt) and losers (those who cannot).”

### Inequality and distributional impacts
- Global inequality channel: poorest countries, which contributed least to the problem, are more vulnerable to warming.
- Within-country distribution: the poor are more concentrated in hotter regions and more vulnerable to climate-related shocks such as heat stress.
- Heterogeneity emphasized: effects vary significantly even within neighborhoods, companies, and families.

### Additional documented causal channels
- Increasing temperatures causally raise:
  - workplace injury risk,
  - mortality,
  - crime rates.
- The reviewer notes ripple effects from these channels are uncertain but likely to worsen without significant adaptation.

### Policy perspective and tone
- Park advocates that it is not too late to limit global warming and to become more resilient via adaptation.
- Argues for a “slow-burning” perspective to avoid fatalism; recommends approaching climate change with “sober resolve, compassion for those most vulnerable, and a sense of active hope.”

*Review by Simon Black, IMF Fiscal Affairs Department.*

---


_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-black.pdf_