Human population planning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_population_planning 

Map of countries by fertility rate (2020), according to the Population Reference Bureau

Human reproduction planning is the practice of intentionally controlling the rate of growth of a human population. Historically, human population planning has been implemented with the goal of increasing the rate of human population growth. However, in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, concerns about global population growth and its effects on poverty, environmental degradation and political stability led to efforts to reduce human population growth rates. More recently, some countries, such as China, Iran, and Spain, have begun efforts to increase their birth rates once again. While population planning can involve measures that improve people's lives by giving them greater control of their reproduction, a few programs, most notably the Chinese government's "one-child policy and two-child policy", have resorted to coercive measures.

Types

Three types of population planning goals pursued by governments can be identified:

1. Increasing or Decreasing the overall population growth rate
2. Decreasing the relative population growth of a less favored subgroup of a national population or ethnic group, such as people of low intelligence or people with disabilities. This is a form of eugenics.
3. Instead of trying to control the rate of population growth per se, trying to arrange things so that all population groups of a certain type (e.g. all social classes within a society) have the same average rate of population growth.

Methods

While a specific population planning practice may be legal/mandated in one country, it may be illegal or restricted in another, indicative of the controversy surrounding this topic.

Reducing population growth

Population planning that is intended to reduce a population or sub-population's growth rates may promote or enforce one or more of the following practices, although there are other methods:

• Contraception

• Abstinence
  

• World infant mortality rates in 2012
• Reducing infant mortality so that parents do not need to have many children to ensure at least some survive to adulthood.
• Abortion
• Changing status of women causing departure from traditional sexual division of labour.
• Sterilization
• One-child and Two-child policies, and other policies restricting or discouraging births directly.
• Family planning
• Migration from rural areas to urban areas: having more children is financially more beneficial (for farming families) in rural areas than in urban areas.
• Create small family "role models"
• Changes to immigration policies
• War (Wars that are done on purpose can cause casualties that lower the population)
• Higher taxation of parents who have too many children
• Emigration.

The method(s) chosen can be strongly influenced by the religious and cultural beliefs of community members. The failure of other methods of population planning can lead to the use of abortion or infanticide as solutions.

Increasing population growth

Population policies that are intended to increase a population or subpopulation growth rates may use practices such as:

• Higher taxation of married couples who have no, or too few, children
• Politicians imploring the populace to have bigger families
• Tax breaks and subsidies for families with children
• Loosening of immigration restrictions, and/or mass recruitment of foreign workers by the government

History

Ancient times through Middle Ages

A number of ancient writers have reflected on the issue of population. At about 300 BC, the Indian political philosopher Chanakya (c. 350-283 BC) considered population a source of political, economic, and military strength. Though a given region can house too many or too few people, he considered the latter possibility to be the greater evil. Chanakya favored the remarriage of widows (which at the time was forbidden in India), opposed taxes encouraging emigration, and believed in restricting asceticism to the aged.

In ancient Greece, Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) discussed the best population size for Greek city-states such as Sparta, and concluded that cities should be small enough for efficient administration and direct citizen participation in public affairs, but at the same time needed to be large enough to defend themselves against hostile neighbors. In order to maintain a desired population size, the philosophers advised that procreation, and if necessary, immigration, should be encouraged if the population size was too small. Emigration to colonies would be encouraged should the population become too large. Aristotle concluded that a large increase in population would bring, "certain poverty on the citizenry and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil." To halt rapid population increase, Aristotle advocated the use of abortion and the exposure of newborns (that is, infanticide).

Confucius (551-478 BC) and other Chinese writers cautioned that, "excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife." Confucius also observed that, "mortality increases when food supply is insufficient; that premature marriage makes for high infantile mortality rates, that war checks population growth."

Ancient Rome, especially in the time of Augustus (63 BC-AD 14), needed manpower to acquire and administer the vast Roman Empire. A series of laws were instituted to encourage early marriage and frequent childbirth. Lex Julia (18 BC) and the Lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9) are two well-known examples of such laws, which among others, provided tax breaks and preferential treatment when applying for public office for those that complied with the laws. Severe limitations were imposed on those who did not. For example, the surviving spouse of a childless couple could only inherit one-tenth of the deceased fortune, while the rest was taken by the state. These laws encountered resistance from the population which led to the disregard of their provisions and to their eventual abolition.

Tertullian, an early Christian author (ca. AD 160-220), was one of the first to describe famine and war as factors that can prevent overpopulation. He wrote: "The strongest witness is the vast population of the earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs; as our demands grow greater, our complaints against Nature's inadequacy are heard by all. The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars, and earthquakes have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race."

Ibn Khaldun, a North African polymath (1332–1406), considered population changes to be connected to economic development, linking high birth rates and low death rates to times of economic upswing, and low birth rates and high death rates to economic downswing. Khaldoun concluded that high population density rather than high absolute population numbers were desirable to achieve more efficient division of labour and cheap administration.

During the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, population issues were rarely discussed in isolation. Attitudes were generally pro-natalist in line with the Biblical command, "Be ye fruitful and multiply."

16th and 17th centuries

European cities grew more rapidly than before, and throughout the 16th century and early 17th century discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of population growth were frequent. Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance political philosopher, wrote, "When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere... the world will purge itself in one or another of these three ways," listing floods, plague and famine. Martin Luther concluded, "God makes children. He is also going to feed them."

Jean Bodin, a French jurist and political philosopher (1530–1596), argued that larger populations meant more production and more exports, increasing the wealth of a country. Giovanni Botero, an Italian priest and diplomat (1540–1617), emphasized that, "the greatness of a city rests on the multitude of its inhabitants and their power," but pointed out that a population cannot increase beyond its food supply. If this limit was approached, late marriage, emigration, and the war would serve to restore the balance.

Richard Hakluyt, an English writer (1527–1616), observed that, "Through our longe peace and seldom sickness... we are grown more populous than ever heretofore;... many thousands of idle persons are within this realme, which, having no way to be sett on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth." Hakluyt believed that this led to crime and full jails and in A Discourse on Western Planting (1584), Hakluyt advocated for the emigration of the surplus population. With the onset of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), characterized by widespread devastation and deaths brought on by hunger and disease in Europe, concerns about depopulation returned.

Population planning movement

In the 20th century, population planning proponents have drawn from the insights of Thomas Malthus, a British clergyman and economist who published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Malthus argued that, "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio." He also outlined the idea of "positive checks" and "preventative checks." "Positive checks", such as diseases, wars, disasters, famines, and genocides are factors which Malthus believed could increase the death rate. "Preventative checks" were factors which Malthus believed could affect the birth rate such as moral restraint, abstinence and birth control. He predicted that "positive checks" on exponential population growth would ultimately save humanity from itself and he also believed that human misery was an "absolute necessary consequence." Malthus went on to explain why he believed that this misery affected the poor in a disproportionate manner.

World population growth rate 1950–2050

There is a constant effort towards an increase in population which tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition…. The way in which these effects are produced seems to be this. We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population... increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food, therefore which before supplied seven million must now be divided among seven million and a half or eight million. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them are reduced to severe distress.

Finally, Malthus advocated for the education of the lower class about the use of "moral restraint" or voluntary abstinence, which he believed would slow the growth rate.

Paul R. Ehrlich, a US biologist and environmentalist, published The Population Bomb in 1968, advocating stringent population planning policies. His central argument on population is as follows:

A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually, he dies - often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance to survive.

World population 1950–2010

World population 1800-2000

In his concluding chapter, Ehrlich offered a partial solution to the "population problem," "[We need] compulsory birth regulation... [through] the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size".

Ehrlich's views came to be accepted by many population planning advocates in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Since Ehrlich introduced his idea of the "population bomb," overpopulation has been blamed for a variety of issues, including increasing poverty, high unemployment rates, environmental degradation, famine and genocide. In a 2004 interview, Ehrlich reviewed the predictions in his book and found that while the specific dates within his predictions may have been wrong, his predictions about climate change and disease were valid. Ehrlich continued to advocate for population planning and co-authored the book The Population Explosion, released in 1990 with his wife Anne Ehrlich.

However, it is controversial as to whether human population stabilization will avert environmental risks.

Paige Whaley Eager argues that the shift in perception that occurred in the 1960s must be understood in the context of the demographic changes that took place at the time. It was only in the first decade of the 19th century that the world's population reached one billion. The second billion was added in the 1930s, and the next billion in the 1960s. 90 percent of this net increase occurred in developing countries. Eager also argues that, at the time, the United States recognised that these demographic changes could significantly affect global geopolitics. Large increases occurred in China, Mexico and Nigeria, and demographers warned of a "population explosion," particularly in developing countries from the mid-1950s onwards.

In the 1980s, tension grew between population planning advocates and women's health activists who advanced women's reproductive rights as part of a human rights-based approach. Growing opposition to the narrow population planning focus led to a significant change in population planning policies in the early 1990s.

Population planning and economics

Opinions vary among economists about the effects of population change on a nation's economic health. US scientific research in 2009 concluded that the raising of a child cost about $16,000 yearly ($291,570 total for raising the child to its 18th birthday). In the US, the multiplication of this number with the yearly population growth will yield the overall cost of the population growth. Costs for other developed countries are usually of a similar order of magnitude.

Some economists, such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams, have argued that poverty and famine are caused by bad government and bad economic policies, not by overpopulation.

In his book The Ultimate Resource, economist Julian Simon argued that higher population density leads to more specialization and technological innovation, which in turn leads to a higher standard of living. He claimed that human beings are the ultimate resource since we possess "productive and inventive minds that help find creative solutions to man’s problems, thus leaving us better off over the long run". He also claimed that, "Our species is better off in just about every measurable material way."

Simon also claimed that when considering a list of countries ranked in order by population density, there is no correlation between population density and poverty and starvation. Instead, if a list of countries is considered according to corruption within their respective governments, there is a significant correlation between government corruption, poverty and famine.

Views on population planning

Birth rate reductions

Support

As early as 1798, Thomas Malthus argued in his Essay on the Principle of Population for implementation of population planning. Around the year 1900, Sir Francis Galton said in his publication Hereditary Improvement: "The unfit could become enemies to the State if they continue to propagate." In 1968, Paul Ehrlich noted in The Population Bomb, "We must cut the cancer of population growth", and "if this was not done, there would be only one other solution, namely the 'death rate solution' in which we raise the death rate through war-famine-pestilence, etc.”

In the same year, another prominent modern advocate for mandatory population planning was Garrett Hardin, who proposed in his landmark 1968 essay Tragedy of the commons, society must relinquish the "freedom to breed" through "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." Later on, in 1972, he reaffirmed his support in his new essay "Exploring New Ethics for Survival", by stating, " We are breeding ourselves into oblivion." Many prominent personalities, such as Bertrand Russell, Margaret Sanger (1939), John D. Rockefeller, Frederick Osborn (1952), Isaac Asimov, Arne Næss and Jacques Cousteau have also advocated for population planning. Today, a number of influential people advocate population planning such as these:

• David Attenborough
• Jonathon Porritt, UK sustainable development commissioner
• Sara Parkin
• Crispin Tickell
• Christian de Duve, Nobel laureate
• Bernie Sanders

The head of the UN Millennium Project Jeffrey Sachs is also a strong proponent of decreasing the effects of overpopulation. In 2007, Jeffrey Sachs gave a number of lectures (2007 Reith Lectures) about population planning and overpopulation. In his lectures, called "Bursting at the Seams", he featured an integrated approach that would deal with a number of problems associated with overpopulation and poverty reduction. For example, when criticized for advocating mosquito nets he argued that child survival was, "by far one of the most powerful ways," to achieve fertility reduction, as this would assure poor families that the smaller number of children they had would survive.

Opposition

The Roman Catholic Church has opposed abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception as a general practice but especially in regard to population planning policies. Pope Benedict XVI has stated, "The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings." The reformed Theology pastor Dr. Stephen Tong also opposes the planning of human population.

Many Muslim Majority countries criminalize abortion under the premise that it is "against the word of god".

Pro-natalist policies

In 1946, Poland introduced a tax on childlessness, discontinued in the 1970s, as part of natalist policies in the Communist government. From 1941 to the 1990s, the Soviet Union had a similar tax to replenish the population losses incurred during the Second World War.

The Socialist Republic of Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu severely repressed abortion, (the most common birth control method at the time) in 1966, and forced gynecological revisions and penalties for unmarried women and childless couples. The surge of the birth rate taxed the public services received by the decreţei 770 ("Scions of the Decree 770") generation. A consequence of Ceaușescu's natalist policy is that large numbers of children ended up living in orphanages, because their parents could not cope. The vast majority of children who lived in the communist orphanages were not actually orphans, but were simply children whose parents could not afford to raise them. The Romanian Revolution of 1989 preceded a fall in population growth.

Balanced birth policies

Nativity in the Western world dropped during the interwar period. Swedish sociologists Alva and Gunnar Myrdal published Crisis in the Population Question in 1934, suggesting an extensive welfare state with universal healthcare and childcare, to increase overall Swedish birth rates, and level the number of children at a reproductive level for all social classes in Sweden. Swedish fertility rose throughout World War II (as Sweden was largely unharmed by the war) and peaked in 1946.

Modern practice by country

Australia

Australia currently offers fortnightly Family Tax Benefit payments plus a free immunization scheme, and recently proposed to pay all child care costs for women who want to work.

China

One-child era (1979–2015)

The most significant population planning system in the world was China's one-child policy, in which, with various exceptions, having more than one child was discouraged. Unauthorized births were punished by fines, although there were also allegations of illegal forced abortions and forced sterilization. As part of China's planned birth policy, (work) unit supervisors monitored the fertility of married women and may decide whose turn it is to have a baby.

The Chinese government introduced the policy in 1978 to alleviate the social and environmental problems of China. According to government officials, the policy has helped prevent 400 million births. The success of the policy has been questioned, and reduction in fertility has also been attributed to the modernization of China. The policy is controversial both within and outside of China because of its manner of implementation and because of concerns about negative economic and social consequences e.g. female infanticide. In oriental cultures, the oldest male child has responsibility of caring for the parents in their old age. Therefore, it is common for oriental families to invest most heavily in the oldest male child, such as providing college, steering them into the most lucrative careers, and so on. To these families, having an oldest male child is paramount, so in a one-child policy, a daughter has no economic benefit, so daughters, especially as a first child, is often targeted for abortion or infanticide. China introduced several government reforms to increase retirement payments to coincide with the one-child policy. During that time, couples could request permission to have more than one child.

According to Tibetologist Melvyn Goldstein, natalist feelings run high in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, among both ordinary people and government officials. Seeing population control "as a matter of power and ethnic survival" rather than in terms of ecological sustainability, Tibetans successfully argued for an exemption of Tibetan people from the usual family planning policies in China such as the one-child policy.

Two-child era (2016-)

Map of population density by country, per square kilometer

In November 2014, the Chinese government allowed its people to conceive a second child under the supervision of government regulation.

On October 29, 2015, the ruling Chinese Communist Party announced that all one-child policies would be scrapped, allowing all couples to have two children. The change was needed to allow a better balance of male and female children, and to grow the young population to ease the problem of paying for the aging population. The law enacting the two-child policy took effect on January 1, 2016, and replaced the previous one-child policy.

Hungary

During the Second Orbán Government, Hungary increased its spending on family benefits from one of the lowest rates in the OECD to one of the highest. In 2015, it was almost 4% of GDP.

India

Only those with two or fewer children are eligible for election to a local government.

Us two, our two ("Hum do, hamare do" in Hindi) is a slogan meaning one family, two children and is intended to reinforce the message of family planning thereby aiding population planning.

Facilities offered by government to its employees are limited to two children. The government offers incentives for families accepted for sterilization. Moreover, India was the first country to take measures for family planning back in 1952.

In the south west of India lies the long narrow coastal state of Kerala. Most of its thirty-two million inhabitants live off the land and the ocean, a rich tropical ecosystem watered by two monsoons a year. It's also one of India's most crowded states – but the population is stable because nearly everybody has small families… At the root of it all is education. Thanks to a long tradition of compulsory schooling for boys and girls Kerala has one of the highest literacy rates in the World. Where women are well educated they tend to choose to have smaller families… What Kerala shows is that you don't need aggressive policies or government incentives for birthrates to fall. Everywhere in the world where women have access to education and have the freedom to run their own lives, on the whole they and their partners have been choosing to have smaller families than their parents. But reducing birthrates is very difficult to achieve without a simple piece of medical technology, contraception.

— BBC Horizon (2009), How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth

Iran

After the Iran–Iraq War, Iran encouraged married couples to produce as many children as possible to replace population lost to the war.

Iran succeeded in sharply reducing its birth rate from the late 1980s to 2010. Mandatory contraceptive courses are required for both males and females before a marriage license can be obtained, and the government emphasized the benefits of smaller families and the use of contraception. This changed in 2012, when a major policy shift back towards increasing birth rates was announced. In 2014, permanent contraception and advertising of birth control were to be outlawed.

Israel

In Israel, Haredi families with many children receive economic support through generous governmental child allowances, government assistance in housing young religious couples, as well as specific funds by their own community institutions. Haredi women have an average of 6.7 children while the average Jewish Israeli woman has 3 children.

Japan

Japan has experienced a shrinking population for many years. The government is trying to encourage women to have children or to have more children – many Japanese women do not have children, or even remain single. The population is culturally opposed to immigration.

Some Japanese localities, facing significant population loss, are offering economic incentives. Yamatsuri, a town of 7 000 just north of Tokyo, offers parents $4,600 for the birth of a child and $460 a year for 10 years.

Myanmar

In Myanmar, the Population planning Health Care Bill requires some parents to space each child three years apart. The measure is expected to be used against the persecuted Muslim Rohingyas minority.

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin directed Parliament in 2006 to adopt a 10-year program to stop the sharp decline in Russia's population, principally by offering financial incentives and subsidies to encourage women to have children.

Singapore

Singapore has undergone two major phases in its population planning: first to slow and reverse the baby boom in the Post-World War II era; then from the 1980s onwards to encourage couples to have more children as the birth rate had fallen below the replacement-level fertility. In addition, during the interim period, eugenics policies were adopted.

The anti-natalist policies flourished in the 1960s and 1970s: initiatives advocating small families were launched and developed into the Stop at Two programme, pushing for two-children families and promoting sterilisation. In 1984, the government announced the Graduate Mothers' Scheme, which favoured children of more well-educated mothers; the policy was however soon abandoned due to the outcry in the general election of the same year. Eventually, the government became pro-natalist in the late 1980s, marked by its Have Three or More plan in 1987. Singapore pays $3,000 for the first child, $9,000 in cash and savings for the second; and up to $18,000 each for the third and fourth.

Spain

In 2017, the government of Spain appointed Edelmira Barreira, as "minister for sex", in a pro-natalist attempt to reverse a negative population growth rate.

Turkey

In May 2012, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued that abortion is murder and announced that legislative preparations to severely limit the practice are underway. Erdogan also argued that abortion and C-section deliveries are plots to stall Turkey's economic growth. Prior to this move, Erdogan had repeatedly demanded that each couple have at least three children.

United States

Enacted in 1970, Title X of the Public Health Service Act provides access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to those in need. Priority for services is given to people with low incomes. The Title X Family Planning program is administered through the Office of Population Affairs under the Office of Public Health and Science. It is directed by the Office of Family Planning. In 2007, Congress appropriated roughly $283 million for family planning under Title X, at least 90 percent of which was used for services in family planning clinics. Title X is a vital source of funding for family planning clinics throughout the nation, which provide reproductive health care, including abortion.

The education and services supplied by the Title X-funded clinics support young individuals and low-income families. The goals of developing healthy families are accomplished by helping individuals and couples decide whether to have children and when the appropriate time to do so would be.

Title X has made the prevention of unintended pregnancies possible. It has allowed millions of American women to receive necessary reproductive health care, plan their pregnancies and prevent abortions. Title X is dedicated exclusively to funding family planning and reproductive health care services.

Title X as a percentage of total public funding to family planning client services has steadily declined from 44% of total expenditures in 1980 to 12% in 2006. Medicaid has increased from 20% to 71% in the same time. In 2006, Medicaid contributed $1.3 billion to public family planning.

In the early 1970s, the United States Congress established the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (Chairman John D. Rockefeller III), which was created to provide recommendations regarding population growth and its social consequences. The Commission submitted its final recommendations in 1972, which included promoting contraceptives and liberalizing abortion regulations, for example.

Natalism in the United States

In a 2004 editorial in The New York Times, David Brooks expressed the opinion that the relatively high birthrate of the United States in comparison to Europe could be attributed to social groups with "natalist" attitudes. The article is referred to in an analysis of the Quiverfull movement. However, the figures identified for the demographic are extremely low.

Former US Senator Rick Santorum made natalism part of his platform for his 2012 presidential campaign. Many of those categorized in the General Social Survey as "Fundamentalist Protestant" are more or less natalist, and have a higher birth rate than "Moderate" and "Liberal" Protestants. However, Rick Santorum is not a Protestant but a practicing Catholic.

Uzbekistan

It is reported that Uzbekistan has been pursuing a policy of forced sterilizations, hysterectomies and IUD insertions since the late 1990s in order to impose population planning.

Effects of climate change on humans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_climate_change_on_humans 

Flooding in the U.S. Midwest, June 2008

The effects of climate change on humans are far reaching and include effects on health, environment, displacement and migration, security, society, human settlement, energy, and transport. Climate change has brought about possibly irreversible alterations to Earth's geological, biological, and ecological systems. These changes have led to the emergence of large-scale environmental hazards to human health; such as extreme weather, ozone depletion, increased danger of wildfires, loss of biodiversity, stresses to food-producing systems, and the global spread of infectious diseases. In addition, climatic changes were estimated to cause over 150,000 deaths annually in 2002, with the World Health Organization estimating this number will increase to 250,000 deaths annually between 2030 and 2050.

A growing body of research explores the many impacts of climate change on human health, food supply, economic growth, migration, security, societal change, and public goods, such as drinking water. The consequences of these changes can help or hurt local human populations. For example, climatic changes in Siberia are expected to improve food production and local economic activity in the short to medium term. However, Bangladesh has experienced an increase in climate-sensitive diseases; such as malaria, dengue, childhood diarrhea, and pneumonia, among vulnerable communities. Numerous studies suggest that the net current and future impacts of climate change on human society will continue being overwhelmingly negative.

Most adverse effects of climate change are experienced by poor and low-income communities around the world, who have much higher levels of vulnerability to environmental determinants of health, wealth and other factors. They also have much lower levels of capacity available for coping with environmental change. A report on the global human impact of climate change published by the Global Humanitarian Forum in 2009, estimated more than 300,000 deaths and about $125 billion in economic losses each year. This indicates how most climate change induced mortality is due to worsening floods and droughts in developing countries.

Key vulnerabilities

Most of the key vulnerabilities to climate change are related to climate phenomena that exceed thresholds for adaptation; such as extreme weather events or abrupt climate change, as well as limited access to resources (financial, technical, human, institutional) to cope. In 2007, the IPCC published a report of key vulnerabilities of industry, settlements, and society to climate change. This assessment included a level of confidence for each key vulnerability:

• Very high confidence: Interactions between climate change and urbanization: this is most notable in developing countries, where urbanization is often focused in vulnerable coastal areas.
• High confidence:
  • Interactions between climate change and global economic growth: Stresses due to climate change are not only linked to the impacts of climate change, but also to the impacts of climate change policies. For example, these policies might affect development paths by requiring high cost fuel choices.
  • Fixed physical infrastructures that are important in meeting human needs: These include infrastructures that are susceptible to damage from extreme weather events or sea level rise, and infrastructures that are already close to being inadequate.
• Medium confidence: Interactions with governmental and social cultural structures that already face other pressures (e.g., limited economic resources).

According to a study called "Future of the Human Climate Niche" published in May 2020, for every degree of temperature rise there will be 1 billion people that will live in areas with temperatures considered as too high for a normal life. Humans generally live in areas where the average temperature is between 6°C and 28°C, with the majority of life in regions with a temperature of 11°C - 15°C. A temperature of 29 degrees or higher is considered as too hot for normal life and currently found only in 0.8% of the land surface (mainly in Sahara desert). However, according to the study by the year 2070 in the RCP8.5 (business as usual) scenario, 30% of human population will live in this area. In the supplementary materials of the study, it is said that according to this scenario the global average temperature will be 3.2 degree higher in the year 2070 relatively to the pre - industrial baseline. According to the United Nations Environmental Program report, the temperature will rise by 3.2 degrees by the end of the century. Even if all the pledges in Paris Agreement (as they were in 2019) will be accomplished.

Health

Climate change poses a wide range of risks to population health. If global climate change continues on its current trajectory, these risks will increase in future decades to potentially critical levels. The three main categories of health risks include: (i) direct-acting effects (e.g. due to heat waves, amplified air pollution, and physical weather disasters), (ii) impacts mediated via climate-related changes in ecological systems and relationships (e.g. crop yields, mosquito ecology, marine productivity), and (iii) the more diffuse (indirect) consequences relating to impoverishment, displacement, resource conflicts (e.g. water), and post-disaster mental health problems.

Climate change threatens to slow, halt or reverse international progress towards reducing child under-nutrition, deaths from diarrheal diseases and the spread of other infectious diseases. Climate change acts predominantly by exacerbating the existing, often enormous, health problems, especially in the poorer parts of the world. Current variations in weather conditions already have many adverse impacts on the health of poor people in developing nations, and these too are likely to be 'multiplied' by the added stresses of climate change.

A changing climate thus affects the prerequisites of population health: clean air and water, sufficient food, natural constraints on infectious disease agents, and the adequacy and security of shelter. A warmer and more variable climate leads to higher levels of some air pollutants. It increases the rates and ranges of transmission of infectious diseases through unclean water and contaminated food, and by affecting vector organisms (such as mosquitoes) and intermediate or reservoir host species that harbour the infectious agent (such as cattle, bats and rodents). Changes in temperature, rainfall and seasonality compromise agricultural production in many regions, including some of the least developed countries, thus jeopardising child health and growth and the overall health and functional capacity of adults. As warming proceeds, the severity (and perhaps frequency) of weather-related disasters will increase – and appears to have done so in a number of regions of the world over the past several decades.

Health equity and climate change have a major impact on human health and quality of life, and are interlinked in a number of ways. The report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health points out that disadvantaged communities are likely to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of climate change because of their increased exposure and vulnerability to health threats. Over 90 percent of malaria and diarrhea deaths are borne by children aged 5 years or younger, mostly in developing countries. Other severely affected population groups include women, the elderly and people living in small island developing states and other coastal regions, mega-cities or mountainous areas.

Psychological impacts

Further information: Effects of global warming on human health § Mental health

A 2011 article in the American Psychologist identified three classes of psychological impacts from global climate change:

• Direct - "Acute or traumatic effects of extreme weather events and a changed environment"
• Indirect - "Threats to emotional well-being based on observation of impacts and concern or uncertainty about future risks"
• Psychosocial – "Chronic social and community effects of heat, drought, migrations, and climate-related conflicts, and postdisaster adjustment." A psychological impact is shown through peoples' behaviours and how they act towards the actual situation. The topic of climate change is very complex and difficult for people to understand, which affects how they act upon it. Ranney and Clark (2016) have shown that informing people about climate science promotes the change in behaviour towards mitigation of climate change.

Extreme weather events

This trend towards more variability and fluctuation is perhaps more important, in terms of its impact on human health, than that of a gradual and long-term trend towards higher average temperature. Infectious disease often accompanies extreme weather events, such as floods, earthquakes and drought. These local epidemics occur due to loss of infrastructure, such as hospitals and sanitation services, but also because of changes in local ecology and environment.

Diseases

Climate change may lead to dramatic increases in prevalence of a variety of infectious diseases. Beginning in the mid-'70s, there has been an "emergence, resurgence and redistribution of infectious diseases". Reasons for this are likely multi-causal, dependent on a variety of social, environmental and climatic factors, however, many argue that the "volatility of infectious disease may be one of the earliest biological expressions of climate instability". Though many infectious diseases are affected by changes in climate, vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, dengue fever and leishmaniasis, present the strongest causal relationship. One major reason that change in climate increases the prevalence of vector borne disease is that temperature and rainfall play a key role in the distribution, magnitude, and viral capacity of mosquitoes, who are primary vectors for many vector borne diseases. Observation and research detect a shift of pests and pathogens in the distribution away from the equator and towards Earth's poles. A tool that has been used to predict this distribution trend is the Dynamic Mosquito Simulation Process (DyMSiM). DyMSiM uses epidemiological and entomological data and practices to model future mosquito distributions based upon climate conditions and mosquitos living in the area. This modeling technique helps identify the distribution of specific species of mosquito, some of which are more susceptible to viral infection than others.

Beyond distribution, rising temperatures can decrease viral incubation time in vivo in vectors increasing the viral transmissibility leading to increases in infection rates.

Malaria

Increased precipitation like rain could increase the number of mosquitos indirectly by expanding larval habitat and food supply. Malaria, which kills approximately 300,000 children (under age 5) annually, poses an imminent threat through temperature increase. Models suggest, conservatively, that risk of malaria will increase 5–15% by 2100 due to climate change. In Africa alone, according to the MARA Project (Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa), there is a projected increase of 16–28% in person-month exposures to malaria by 2100.

Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that is the vector for dengue transmission.

Non-climatic determinants

Sociodemographic factors include, but are not limited to: patterns of human migration and travel, effectiveness of public health and medical infrastructure in controlling and treating disease, the extent of anti-malarial drug resistance and the underlying health status of the population at hand. Environmental factors include: changes in land-use (e.g. deforestation), expansion of agricultural and water development projects (which tend to increase mosquito breeding habitat), and the overall trend towards urbanization (i.e. increased concentration of human hosts). Patz and Olson argue that these changes in landscape can alter local weather more than long term climate change. For example, the deforestation and cultivation of natural swamps in the African highlands has created conditions favourable for the survival of mosquito larvae, and has, in part, led to the increasing incidence of malaria. The effects of these non-climatic factors complicate things and make a direct causal relationship between climate change and malaria difficult to confirm. It is highly unlikely that climate exerts an isolated effect.

Dengue

Dengue incidence has only increased in the last few decades, and is projected to continue to do so with changing climate conditions. Dengue fever is spread by the bite of the female mosquito known as Aedes aegypti. This species of mosquito can travel up to 400 meters in search of water to lay their eggs, but often remain closer to human habitation. A mosquito becomes infected with dengue when it bites and takes the blood of an infected human. After approximately one week, the mosquito can then transmit the dengue infection to other humans through her bite. While dengue cannot be spread from person to person, an infected person can infect more mosquitos, thus, furthering the spread of the disease. Overall, the female mosquito is a highly effective vector of this disease.

Once infected with the dengue virus, humans experience severe flu-like symptoms. Also known as "break-bone fever", dengue can affect infants, children, and adults and can be fatal. Those infected exhibit a high fever (40 °C/ 104 °F) along with at least two of the following symptoms: severe headache, pain behind the eye, nausea, vomiting, swollen glands, muscle and joint pains, and rash. These symptoms usually last 2–7 days. Dengue can become fatal due to plasma leaking, fluid accumulation, respiratory distress, severe bleeding, or organ impairment. Warning signs of this include a decrease in temperature decrease (below 38 °C/ 100 °F) in conjunction with: severe abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, rapid breathing, bleeding gums, blood in vomit, and/or fatigue and restlessness.

Where the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, lives and the amount of mosquitos present is strongly influenced by the amount of water-bearing containers or pockets of standstill water in an area, daily temperature and variation in temperature, moisture, and solar radiation. While dengue fever is primarily considered a tropical and subtropical disease, the geographic ranges of the aedes aegypti are expanding. Globalization, trade, travel, demographic trends, and warming temperatures are all attributed to the recent spread to this primary vector of dengue.

Dengue is now ranked as the most important vector-borne viral disease in the world. Today, an estimated 50–100 million dengue fever infections occur annually. In just the past 50 years, transmission has increased drastically with new cases of the disease (incidence) increasing 30-fold. Once localized to a few areas in the tropics, dengue fever is now endemic in over 100 countries in Southeast Asia, the Americas, Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific with Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific regions being the most seriously affected. Recently the number of reported cases has continually increased along with dengue spreading to new areas. Explosive outbreaks are also occurring. Moreover, there is the possible threat of outbreak in Europe with local transmission of dengue being reported for the first time in France and Croatia in 2010. One country that has seen significant impacts from dengue is Bangladesh.

Environment

Climate change may dramatically impact habitat loss, for example, arid conditions may cause the deforestation of rainforests, as has occurred in the past.

Temperature

A sustained wet-bulb temperature exceeding 35 °C is a threshold at which the resilience of human systems is no longer able to adequately cool the skin. A study by NOAA from 2013 concluded that heat stress will reduce labor capacity considerably under current emissions scenarios. There is evidence to show that high temperatures can increase mortality rates among fetuses and children. Although the main focus is often on the health impacts and risks of higher temperatures, it should be remembered that they also reduce learning and worker productivity, which can impact a country's economy and development.

Low temperature

Climate change contributes to cold snaps due to disruptions in the polar vortex caused by a decline in Arctic sea ice. This causes frigid, cold air to spill from the Arctic and into areas of the northern hemisphere that usually don't experience such cold temperatures, such as the North American southeast, midwest, northeast, and parts of Europe. This is a predicted short-term effect of climate change in the winter. This brings along extreme cold temperatures for a short period of time, and results in large scale disruption to human life. A statistic from data on the winter season of 2013-14 found that of the most notable of the winter storms – most of which were caused by the disruption of the polar vortex – caused $263 million in damage, 32 fatalities, and 9 injuries. Furthermore, infrastructure damage in the form of closed roads, schools, airports, and other civil functions occurred throughout the northeast, and in some parts of the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. A commercial airliner skidded off the runway and into a nearby snowbank at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York during the 2014 cold snap. The winter season of 2013-2014 also caused some crop damage as shown in Ohio losing 97% of their grape harvest. Further harvests in the following years were also affected as freeze damage reached deep into the trunks of some plants killing off the plant. The total damages extended to roughly $4 million, impacting Ohio's economy and wine production. Cold Events are expected to increase in the short term while in the long term the increasing global temperature is going to give way to more heat related events.

Water

The freshwater resources that humans rely on are highly sensitive to variations in weather and climate. In 2007, the IPCC reported with high confidence that climate change has a net negative impact on water resources and freshwater ecosystems in all regions. The IPCC also found with very high confidence that arid and semi-arid areas are particularly exposed to freshwater impacts.

As the climate warms, it changes the nature of global rainfall, evaporation, snow, stream flow and other factors that affect water supply and quality. Specific impacts include:

• Warmer water temperatures affect water quality and accelerate water pollution.
• Sea level rise is projected to increase salt-water intrusion into groundwater in some regions. This reduces the amount of freshwater available for drinking and farming.
• In some areas, shrinking glaciers and snow deposits threaten the water supply. Areas that depend on melted water runoff will likely see that runoff depleted, with less flow in the late summer and spring peaks occurring earlier. This can affect the ability to irrigate crops. (This situation is particularly acute for irrigation in South America, for irrigation and drinking supplies in Central Asia, and for hydropower in Norway, the Alps, and the Pacific Northwest of North America.)
• Increased extreme weather means more water falls on hardened ground unable to absorb it, leading to flash floods instead of a replenishment of soil moisture or groundwater levels.
• Increased evaporation will reduce the effectiveness of reservoirs.
• At the same time, human demand for water will grow for the purposes of cooling and hydration.
• Increased precipitation can lead to changes in water-borne and vector-borne diseases.

Cryosphere

Higher temperatures usually lead to more drowning accidents in winter because the ice is thinner, therefore climate change will probably lead to more such cases.

Displacement and migration

A refugee camp north of Goma near the Rwandan border

Climate change causes displacement of people in several ways, the most obvious—and dramatic—being through the increased number and severity of weather-related disasters which destroy homes and habitats causing people to seek shelter or livelihoods elsewhere. Effects of climate change such as desertification and rising sea levels gradually erode livelihood and force communities to abandon traditional homelands for more accommodating environments. This is currently happening in areas of Africa's Sahel, the semi-arid belt that spans the continent just below its northern deserts. Deteriorating environments triggered by climate change can also lead to increased conflict over resources which in turn can displace people.

The IPCC has estimated that 150 million environmental migrants will exist by the year 2050, due mainly to the effects of coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption. However, the IPCC also cautions that it is extremely difficult to measure the extent of environmental migration due to the complexity of the issue and a lack of data.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, more than 42 million people were displaced in Asia and the Pacific during 2010 and 2011, more than twice the population of Sri Lanka. This figure includes those displaced by storms, floods, and heat and cold waves. Still others were displaced by drought and sea-level rise. Most of those compelled to leave their homes eventually returned when conditions improved, but an undetermined number became migrants, usually within their country, but also across national borders.

Asia and the Pacific is the global area most prone to natural disasters, both in terms of the absolute number of disasters and of populations affected. It is highly exposed to climate impacts, and is home to highly vulnerable population groups, who are disproportionately poor and marginalized. A recent Asian Development Bank report highlights "environmental hot spots" that are particular risk of flooding, cyclones, typhoons, and water stress.

Some Pacific Ocean island nations, such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives, are considering the eventual possibility of evacuation, as flood defense may become economically unrealistic. Tuvalu already has an ad hoc agreement with New Zealand to allow phased relocation. However, for some islanders relocation is not an option. They are not willing to leave their homes, land and families. Some simply don't know the threat that climate change has on their island and this is mainly down to the lack of awareness that climate change even exists. In Vutia on Viti Levu, Fiji's main island, half the respondents to a survey had not heard of climate change (Lata and Nuun 2012). Even where there is awareness many believe that it is a problem caused by developed countries and should therefore be solved by developed countries. As of 2020 many Pacific islands are growing in size, contradicting earlier claims.

Governments have considered various approaches to reduce migration compelled by environmental conditions in at-risk communities, including programs of social protection, livelihoods development, basic urban infrastructure development, and disaster risk management. Some experts even support migration as an appropriate way for people to cope with environmental changes. However, this is controversial because migrants – particularly low-skilled ones – are among the most vulnerable people in society and are often denied basic protections and access to services.

Climate change is only one factor that may contribute to a household's decision to migrate; other factors may include poverty, population growth or employment options. For this reason, it is difficult to classify environmental migrants as actual "refugees" as legally defined by the UNHCR. Neither the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change nor its Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement on climate change, includes any provisions concerning specific assistance or protection for those who will be directly affected by climate change.

In small islands and megadeltas, inundation as a result of sea level rise is expected to threaten vital infrastructure and human settlements. This could lead to issues of statelessness for populations in countries such as the Maldives and Tuvalu and homelessness in countries with low-lying areas such as Bangladesh.

The World Bank predicts that a "severe hit" will spur conflict and migration across the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.

Security

Climate change has the potential to exacerbate existing tensions or create new ones — serving as a threat multiplier. It can be a catalyst for violent conflict and a threat to international security. A meta-analysis of over 50 quantitative studies that examine the link between climate and conflict found that "for each 1 standard deviation (1σ) change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall, median estimates indicate that the frequency of interpersonal violence rises 4% and the frequency of intergroup conflict rises 14%." The IPCC has suggested that the disruption of environmental migration may serve to exacerbate conflicts, though they are less confident of the role of increased resource scarcity. Of course, climate change does not always lead to violence, and conflicts are often caused by multiple interconnected factors.

A variety of experts have warned that climate change may lead to increased conflict. The Military Advisory Board, a panel of retired U.S. generals and admirals, predicted that global warming will serve as a "threat multiplier" in already volatile regions. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security, two Washington think tanks, have reported that flooding "has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities," leading to "armed conflict over resources." They indicate that the greatest threat would come from "large-scale migrations of people — both inside nations and across existing national borders." However, other researchers have been more skeptical: One study found no statistically meaningful relationship between climate and conflict using data from Europe between the years 1000 and 2000.

The link between climate change and security is a concern for authorities across the world, including United Nations Security Council and the G77 group of developing nations. Climate change's impact as a security threat is expected to hit developing nations particularly hard. In Britain, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has argued that "An unstable climate will exacerbate some of the core drivers of conflict, such as migratory pressures and competition for resources." The links between the human impact of climate change and the threat of violence and armed conflict are particularly important because multiple destabilizing conditions are affected simultaneously.

Experts have suggested links to climate change in several major conflicts:

• War in Darfur, where sustained drought encouraged conflict between herders and farmers
• Syrian Civil War, preceded by the displacement of 1.5 million people due to drought-induced crop and livestock failure
• Islamist insurgency in Nigeria, which exploited natural resource shortages to fuel anti-government sentiment
• Somali Civil War, in which droughts and extreme high temperatures have been linked to violence
• Herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria, Mali, South Sudan and other countries in the Sahel region are exacerbated by climate change.
• Northern Mali conflict, in which droughts and extreme high temperatures have been linked to violence

Additionally, researchers studying ancient climate patterns (paleoclimatology) have shown that long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population changes have followed cycles of temperature change since the preindustrial era. A 2016 study finds that "drought can contribute to sustaining conflict, especially for agriculturally dependent groups and politically excluded groups in very poor countries. These results suggest a reciprocal nature–society interaction in which violent conflict and environmental shock constitute a vicious circle, each phenomenon increasing the group’s vulnerability to the other."

Social impacts

The consequences of climate change and poverty are not distributed uniformly within communities. Individual and social factors such as gender, age, education, ethnicity, geography and language lead to differential vulnerability and capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Disproportionate effects on children

Climate change effects such as hunger, poverty and diseases like diarrhea and malaria, disproportionately impact children; about 90 percent of malaria and diarrhea deaths are among young children. Children are also 14–44 percent more likely to die from environmental factors, again leaving them the most vulnerable. Those in urban areas will be affected by lower air quality and overcrowding, and will struggle the most to better their situation.

Social effects of extreme weather

As the World Meteorological Organization explains, "recent increase in societal impact from tropical cyclones has largely been caused by rising concentrations of population and infrastructure in coastal regions." Pielke et al. (2008) normalized mainland U.S. hurricane damage from 1900 to 2005 to 2005 values and found no remaining trend of increasing absolute damage. The 1970s and 1980s were notable because of the extremely low amounts of damage compared to other decades. The decade 1996–2005 has the second most damage among the past 11 decades, with only the decade 1926–1935 surpassing its costs. The most damaging single storm is the 1926 Miami hurricane, with $157 billion of normalized damage.

Human settlement

A major challenge for human settlements is sea level rise, indicated by ongoing observation and research of rapid declines in ice-mass balance from both Greenland and Antarctica. Estimates for 2100 are at least twice as large as previously estimated by IPCC AR4, with an upper limit of about two meters. Depending on regional changes, increased precipitation patterns can cause more flooding or extended drought stresses water resources.

Coasts and low-lying areas

For historical reasons to do with trade, many of the world's largest and most prosperous cities are on the coast. In developing countries, the poorest often live on floodplains, because it is the only available space, or fertile agricultural land. These settlements often lack infrastructure such as dykes and early warning systems. Poorer communities also tend to lack the insurance, savings, or access to credit needed to recover from disasters.

In a journal paper, Nicholls and Tol (2006) considered the effects of sea level rise:

The most vulnerable future worlds to sea-level rise appear to be the A2 and B2 [IPCC] scenarios, which primarily reflects differences in the socio-economic situation (coastal population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP/capita), rather than the magnitude of sea-level rise. Small islands and deltaic settings stand out as being more vulnerable as shown in many earlier analyses. Collectively, these results suggest that human societies will have more choice in how they respond to sea-level rise than is often assumed. However, this conclusion needs to be tempered by recognition that we still do not understand these choices and significant impacts remain possible.

The IPCC reported that socioeconomic impacts of climate change in coastal and low-lying areas would be overwhelmingly adverse. The following impacts were projected with very high confidence:

• Coastal and low-lying areas would be exposed to increasing risks including coastal erosion due to climate change and sea level rise.
• By the 2080s, millions of people would experience floods every year due to sea level rise. The numbers affected were projected to be largest in the densely populated and low-lying mega-deltas of Asia and Africa; and smaller islands were judged to be especially vulnerable.

A study in the April 2007 issue of Environment and Urbanization reports that 634 million people live in coastal areas within 30 feet (9.1 m) of sea level. The study also reported that about two thirds of the world's cities with over five million people are located in these low-lying coastal areas.

Projections for cities in 2050

In 2019 the Crowther Lab from ETH Zürich paired the climatic conditions of 520 major cities worldwide with the predicted climatic conditions of cities in 2050. 22% of the major cities are predicted to have climatic conditions that do not exist in any city today. 2050 London will have a climate similar to 2019 Melbourne, Athens and Madrid like Fez, Morocco, Nairobi like Maputo. New York will have a climate similar to Virginia Beach today, Virginia Beach like Podgorica, Montenegro. 2050 Seattle will be like 2019 San Francisco, Toronto like Washington D.C., Washington D.C. like Nashville. Berlin and Paris like Canberra, Australia. Canberra and Vienna will be like Skopje. The Indian city Pune will be like Bamako in Mali, Bamako will be like Niamey in Niger. Brasilia will be like Goiania.

Energy sector

Electricity

Climate Change increases the risk of wildfires that can be caused by power lines. In 2019, after a "red flag" warning about the possibility of wildfires was declared in some areas of California, the electricity company "Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E)" begun to shut down power, for preventing inflammation of trees that touch the electricity lines. Millions can be impacted. The climatic conditions that caused this warning will become more frequent because of climate change. If the temperatures keep rising, effects such as power outage could become common.

Oil, coal and natural gas

Oil and natural gas infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the increased risk of disasters such as storm, cyclones, flooding and long-term increases in sea level. Minimising these risks by building in less disaster prone areas, can be expensive and impossible in countries with coastal locations or island states. All thermal power stations depend on water to cool them. Not only is there increased demand for fresh water, but climate change can increase the likelihood of drought and fresh water shortages. Another impact for thermal power plants, is that increasing the temperatures in which they operate reduces their efficiency and hence their output. The source of oil often comes from areas prone to high natural disaster risks; such as tropical storms, hurricanes, cyclones, and floods. An example is Hurricane Katrina's impact on oil extraction in the Gulf of Mexico, as it destroyed 126 oil and gas platforms and damaged 183 more.

However, previously pristine arctic areas will now be available for resource extraction.

Nuclear

Climate change, along with extreme weather and natural disasters can affect nuclear power plants in a similar way to those using oil, coal, and natural gas. However, the impact of water shortages on nuclear power plants cooled by rivers will be greater than on other thermal power plants. This is because old reactor designs with water-cooled cores must run at lower internal temperatures and thus, paradoxically, must dump more heat to the environment to produce a given amount of electricity. This situation has forced some nuclear reactors to be shut down and will do so again unless the cooling systems of these plants are enhanced to provide more capacity. Nuclear power supply was diminished by low river flow rates and droughts, which meant rivers had reached the maximum temperatures for cooling. Such shutdowns happened in France during the 2003 and 2006 heat waves. During the heat waves, 17 reactors had to limit output or shut down. 77% of French electricity is produced by nuclear power; and in 2009 a similar situation created a 8GW shortage, and forced the French government to import electricity. Other cases have been reported from Germany, where extreme temperatures have reduced nuclear power production 9 times due to high temperatures between 1979 and 2007. In particular:

• The Unterweser nuclear power plant reduced output by 90% between June and September 2003.
• The Isar nuclear power plant cut production by 60% for 14 days due to excess river temperatures and low stream flow in the river Isar in 2006.

Similar events have happened elsewhere in Europe during those same hot summers. Many scientists agree that if global warming continues, this disruption is likely to increase.

Hydroelectricity

Changes in the amount of river flow will correlate with the amount of energy produced by a dam. Lower river flows because of drought, climate change, or upstream dams and diversions, will reduce the amount of live storage in a reservoir; therefore reducing the amount of water that can be used for hydroelectricity. The result of diminished river flow can be a power shortage in areas that depend heavily on hydroelectric power. The risk of flow shortage may increase as a result of climate change. Studies from the Colorado River in the United States suggests that modest climate changes (such as a 2 degree change in Celsius that could result in a 10% decline in precipitation), might reduce river run-off by up to 40%. Brazil in particular, is vulnerable due to its having reliance on hydroelectricity as increasing temperatures, lower water flow, and alterations in the rainfall regime, could reduce total energy production by 7% annually by the end of the century.

Insurance

An industry directly affected by the risks of climate change is the insurance industry. According to a 2005 report from the Association of British Insurers, limiting carbon emissions could avoid 80% of the projected additional annual cost of tropical cyclones by the 2080s. A June 2004 report by the Association of British Insurers declared "Climate change is not a remote issue for future generations to deal with; it is, in various forms here already, impacting on insurers' businesses now." The report noted that weather-related risks for households and property were already increasing by 2–4% per year due to the changing weather conditions, and claims for storm and flood damages in the UK had doubled to over £6 billion over the period from 1998–2003 compared to the previous five years. The results are rising insurance premiums, and the risk that in some areas flood insurance will become unaffordable for those in the lower income brackets.

Financial institutions, including the world's two largest insurance companies: Munich Re and Swiss Re, warned in a 2002 study that "the increasing frequency of severe climatic events, coupled with social trends could cost almost 150 billion US$ each year in the next decade." These costs would burden customers, taxpayers, and the insurance industry, with increased costs related to insurance and disaster relief.

In the United States, insurance losses have also greatly increased. It has been shown that a 1% climb in annual precipitation can increase catastrophe loss by as much as 2.8%. Gross increases are mostly attributed to increased population and property values in vulnerable coastal areas; though there was also an increase in frequency of weather-related events like heavy rainfalls since the 1950s.

In March 2019, Munich Re noted that climate change could cause home insurance to become unaffordable for households at or below average incomes.

Transport

Roads, airport runways, railway lines and pipelines, (including oil pipelines, sewers, water mains etc.) may require increased maintenance and renewal as they become subject to greater temperature variation. Regions already adversely affected include areas of permafrost, which are subject to high levels of subsidence, resulting in buckling roads, sunken foundations, and severely cracked runways.