Projection of economic impacts of climate change in sectors of Europe based on bottom up analysis: human health

This paper scopes a number of the health impacts of climate change in Europe (EU-27) quantitatively, using physical and monetary metrics. Temperature-related mortality effects, salmonellosis and coastal flooding-induced mental health impacts resulting from climate change are isolated from the effects of socio-economic change for the 2011–2040 and 2071–2100 time periods. The temperature-induced mortality effects of climate change include both positive and negative effects, for winter (cold) and summer (heat) effects, respectively, and have welfare costs (and benefits) of up to 100 billion Euro annually by the later time-period, though these are unevenly distributed across countries. The role of uncertainty in quantifying these effects is explored through sensitivity analysis on key parameters. This investigates climate model output, climate scenario, impact function, the existence and extent of acclimatisation, and the choice of physical and monetary metrics. While all of these lead to major differences in reported results, acclimatisation is particularly important in determining the size of the health impacts, and could influence the scale and form of public adaptation at the EU and national level. The welfare costs for salmonellosis from climate change are estimated at potentially several hundred million Euro annually by the period 2071–2100. Finally, a scoping assessment of the health costs of climate change from coastal flooding, focusing on mental health problems such as depression, are estimated at up to 1.5 billion Euro annually by the period 2071–2100.