Similarly, it is possible to calculate the impact of emissions within a limited number of years. Callahan and Mankin, for example, noted that internal oil companies’ research suggested that climate change was a problem around 1980, and calculated the impact of emissions that occurred after people learned that it was a problem. So the approach is very flexible.
From there, researchers can use empirical information that associates high temperatures with economic damage. “Recent peer-reviewed work used economics to infer the causal relationship between climate risks and outcomes such as loss of income, reduced agricultural yields, increased human mortality, and depression,” writes Callahan and Mankin. These metrics can be used to estimate costs such as flooding, crop loss, and other economic damage. Alternatively, researchers can analyze the impact on individual climate events where financial costs are calculated separately.
Major losses
To implement that method, researchers run many individual models and provide the most likely costs and ranges around them together. First, we convert each company’s emissions into an impact on the global average surface temperature. It translates into an effect on extreme temperatures and allows you to estimate what day will look like at the five most extreme temperatures. It translates into economic damages associated with extreme heat.
Callahan and Mankin use Chevron as an example. By 2020, Chevron emissions were responsible for 0.025°C of warming that year. A similar analysis of ears between 1991 and 2020 leads researchers to come up with a minimum of $800 billion to $3.6 trillion in damages. Most of the damage affected the tropical nations.
The five most carbon-emission companies are continuing to generate losses from Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron and Exxon Mobile. BP lifts the rear with “just” $1.45 trillion damage. For the full list of 111 carbon majors, Callahan and Mankin will bring the total loss to around $28 trillion.
