Climate change is already shrinking your salary

No matter where you live, a new study has found warmer temperatures are picking your pocket

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Climate change isn't all flooding, wildfires and melting glaciers - it comes with a price tag too. And if you assume rising temperatures haven't hit your wallet because you haven't lost a home to a natural disaster, the latest research suggests otherwise.

A new study finds that climate change has already cut incomes in the US by around 12 per cent since 2000. The figure is a significant increase on previous estimates and a signal that the costs of global warming aren’t just future projections, but a present-day reality.

Lemoine’s previous research had previously put the impact on incomes at a much lower one per cent. But his new analysis, which captures how warming unfolds persistently over time and across the entire country, pushes that figure sharply higher.

“Climate change is already costing the US economy by changing temperatures around the country,” Lemoine told BBC Science Focus. “Most of those costs aren’t driven by changes in weather where you live, but by how changes in weather everywhere else affect supply chains and the cost of products you buy from elsewhere in the US.”

CHAIN REACTION

Decades of research suggest productivity peaks within a relatively narrow temperature range and falls away at both hot and cold extremes. When productivity drops in one farming region, manufacturing hub or transport route, consequences can ripple through supply chains. This means prices can rise and incomes can drag even in places where local weather has barely changed.

“Climate change operates through the whole economy,” Lemoine explained. “Places are linked through trade, so temperatures in California or Iowa can influence income in Arizona. Those cross-state connections turn local weather changes into nationwide economic impacts.”