## Book Review: Warmer World Slower Growth by Simon Black

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [Book Review: Warmer World Slower Growth by Simon Black](https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/book-review-warmer-world-slower-growth-simon-black)

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## Bibliographic details
- Authors: SIMON BLACK
- Published: March 4, 2024

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### Main thesis
- Climate change is described as "one of the most significant threats facing the global economy."
- The reviewed book, Slow Burn: The Hidden Costs of a Warming World (R. Jisung Park), documents "slow-burning effects" of warming already affecting human welfare and the economy, from worsening inequality to declining productivity and economic growth.
- Park emphasizes that adaptation can limit harms and that a "slow-burning perspective" helps avoid fatalism and sustain "sober resolve, compassion for those most vulnerable, and a sense of active hope."

### Key findings and documented channels of impact
- Heat can significantly hinder human performance across diverse activities, including:
  - standardized exams,
  - professional tennis,
  - manufacturing.
- Temperature-driven effects already observed or documented:
  - Increasing temperatures causally raise workplace injury risk.
  - Increasing temperatures causally raise mortality.
  - Increasing temperatures causally raise crime rates.
  - Declining productivity and economic growth linked to higher temperatures.
  - Worsening inequality: poorer countries and poorer populations within countries are more vulnerable.
- Distributional consequences:
  - The poorest countries—“which contributed the least to the problem”—are more vulnerable to climate effects.
  - Within countries, the poor are more concentrated in hotter regions and more vulnerable to climate-related shocks such as heat stress.
  - Climate change may "significantly alter the economic playing field" by creating winners (those able to adapt) and losers (those who cannot).

### Projections and quantitative statements (preserved exactly)
- According to the World Meteorological Organization, temperatures are likely to increase to more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels within the coming five years.
- Even with moderate strengthening of global mitigation policy, temperatures are expected to increase by more than 3°C by 2100.
- A United Nations survey found two-thirds of the global population believe that climate change is a global emergency.
- Book details preserved: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2024, 336 pp., $29.95.

### Uncertainties and scope
- The effects of climate change are uncertain, with "significant variation even within neighborhoods, companies, and families."
- Ripple effects of impacts like injury, mortality, and crime are uncertain, but "without significant adaptations they are likely to get worse as the planet continues to warm."

### Policy implications and recommendations (author’s perspective)
- Adaptation is essential: it is "not too late" to limit global warming while becoming much more resilient to slow-burning effects through adaptation.
- Emphasize a slow-burning perspective to:
  - Avoid doomsday fatalism.
  - Foster sober resolve and compassion for the most vulnerable.
  - Promote active hope and practical policy responses focused on mitigation and adaptation.

### Author and provenance notes
- Review author: SIMON BLACK, economist in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department.
- Opinions expressed are those of the author and "do not necessarily reflect IMF policy."

*F&D Magazine — Warmer World, Slower Growth — SIMON BLACK, March 2024.*

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## Content in this bundle

- **Book Reviews: Warmer World, Slower Growth**
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_Source: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/book-review-warmer-world-slower-growth-simon-black_