Question

explain the essential spatial and temporal (time) aspects of the economics of global climate change

Answer 1

Spatial Aspects

The spatial impacts of global climate change differ from region to region but overall we see a rise in average global temperature with an exception to some areas of North America where we notice a fall in the temperature.

The effects of climate change and adaption to it is felt differently by different demographic groups.

At the same time, each climate change effect have different costs and benefits associated with it. To take an example, an increased water temperatures may reduce the viable habitat of cool water fish but at the same time increase numbers of fish for recreational fishing.

Similarly, implementation of adaptation measures used to combat the climate change have its benefits and costs associated with it. It needs to be assessed considering various trade-offs, including residual impacts. Different climate change effects may occur simultaneously and hence their impact on complex systems cannot needs to be considered together.

Temporal (Historical/Time) Aspects

Understanding temporal aspects and trends leading to forecasting future emissions is scientific interest and at the same time needed in order to provide a baseline or “business as usual” (BAU) scenario against which policy scenarios need to be benchmarked.

Kaya factors play an important role in explaining historical emissions and driving future projections. Change in technology is one of the most important factor that leads to decline in energy intensity and fall in carbon intensity.

In the historical record, it helps to identify characteristic “learning rates'' for the reduction in cost of energy technologies, to identify patterns, processes, and timescales that leads to diffusion of new technologies in competitive markets.

This measure leads to simple quantification of the improvement in cost and performance due to cumulative experience and investments.

Technologies that are long-lived and are components of interlocking networks typically require the longest time to diffuse and co-evolve with other technologies in the network. While we investigate the final Kaya factor – carbon intensity of energy, it shows that over the period of time, the fuels that power the economy have had progressively more energy per unit of carbon pollution.

Geographic (spatial) and temporal aspects inform decision-makers about the likely impacts of different climates and in turn helps them to suggest possible adaptation strategies.