Europe to suffer as the world warms up
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels - Published: January 5 2007

Climate change is one of the most serious issues facing the planet. Scientific evidence shows that temperature changes are likely to have profoundly negative consequences for human society, the global economy and the world’s natural systems. This poses risks and opportunities to which investors and companies must respond

Chilly northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming, while the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century, according to the first comprehensive study of its effects on the continent.
Fewer in the north would die of cold, crops there would boom and the North Sea coast could become the new Riviera, an analysis to be approved by the European Commission next week shows. But the annual migration of rich northern Europeans to the south could stop – with dramatic consequences for the economies of Spain, Greece and Italy.
A sixth of the world’s tourists – 100m people annually – head south within Europe for their holidays, spreading €100bn ($130bn) of largesse with them. “The more tourists stay home or go to other destinations, the larger the distributional impact in Europe will be,” says the paper, a copy of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.
While fewer people will perish of cold in the north, tens of thousands more will die of heat in the south. As many as 87,000 extra deaths a year would occur annually by 2071, assuming a three degree centigrade temperature rise. If efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions limit the rise to 2.2 degrees, additional mortalities would be 36,000 a year.
These numbers are dwarfed by predicted deaths and economic chaos in the developing world.
The Commission’s environment directorate compiled the report with data from Brussels’ satellite monitoring service and a review of the latest evidence.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007