On inequality, it has long been noted that climate change has the potential to increase global inequality and that, perversely, the poorest countries—which contributed the least to the problem—are more vulnerable to its effects. This also appears to be the case within all countries, with the poor simultaneously more concentrated in hotter regions and more vulnerable to climate-related shocks such as heat stress than the rich. These effects are uncertain, with significant variation even within neighborhoods, companies, and families.

Park documents several other channels through which the slow-burning effects of climate change are already affecting human welfare. Increasing temperatures causally raise workplace injury risk, mortality, and crime rates, for example. The ripple effects of these impacts are uncertain, but without significant adaptations they are likely to get worse as the planet continues to warm.

However, Park ends on an optimistic note: it’s not too late, he says, to limit global warming while becoming much more resilient to the slow-burning effects through adaptation. Further, he argues, focus on the slow-burning perspective can help avoid the fatalism the doomsday climate narrative invokes and allow us instead to “view climate change with sober resolve, compassion for those most vulnerable, and a sense of active hope.”

 

Opinions expressed in articles and other materials are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect IMF policy.