Why should nations that stand to benefit from climate change have to contribute to the fight against it?

Question

Based on this article, this article and this article, global warming could benefit some countries in the world. The first article (withdrawn later as pointed out by LShaver) says the warming of temperatures across the world could generate an economic boost to some 70 countries in the coming decades. One of the examples given in the first article is:

For the mildest pathway, the Czech economy could stand to gain nearly 0.3% in GDP per capita by 2050 when compared to current emission levels and temperatures, with similar gains spread across the rest of the century as well. Interestingly, the higher the emissions, the higher the benefit for Czech Republic.

This article could be questionable, but it is not hard to understand that countries with low-temperature climate could benefit from the global warming. Not even to mention that the economy of many countries will be harmed if we use carbon-free fuels instead of fossil fuels.

Given this, why is it becoming constructive (or more emotionally, "politically correct") for nations in the world to form a joint force to fight global warming? Why should any country be blamed/discriminated for not being part of it?

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Update: I personally do not deny the fact that human beings as a whole will benefit from stopping global warming in the next hundreds of years. My questions is more about why the majority of the world has the right to use the "political correctness" to force (using media or political influence whatever) the countries (no matter there are 70 of them or 7 of them) that will benefit from it in the next few decades. As a comparison, we can question the whether the majority can force the religious minority to abandon their gods and believe in science.

In a nutshell, my question is more about politics than science. If you believe it is constructive, one possible way to answer is to argue (better with theories from political science, game theory etc.) that the small number of countries will inevitably suffer more in other ways (from sanctions, wars, kicked out of important organizations by the pro-clean-energy big powers) even if their economy could boost from global warming forever (thanks to the comments by Jeff Lambert). Answers from other perspectives are also welcome and appreciated!

Answer 1

This quite a good question, considering that it is one often asked by detractors of climate change concerns.

Frame shift: Benefits? What benefits? From the POV of Canada, a cold country which is explicitly cited as an example in the consultancy.eu report, this whole notion of climate change economic benefits seems highly dubious. Now, if it doesn't even work here, where would it? In a large, aggregate, country-level, sense?

Let's take a strictly utilitarian viewpoint of the likely impacts of climate change to Canada, and for the purposes of this answer, even completely ignore any extinction threats to wildlife.

This is what the study claims:

So the Czech Republic is poised to benefit from any increase in emissions, no matter how intense. The country is not alone in this position. In fact, the analysis suggests that around 70 countries in total stand to benefit from higher temperatures. Fellow cold climate countries Russia, Canada, Mongolia, Finland, Kyrgystan, Norway, Tajikistan, Sweden, Iceland and North Korea are all in the same boat.

Some of what has actually happened/will probably happen to Canada follows:

Mountain beetles impact on logging, in BC

The British Columbia interior forestry for pine collapsed from 2000-2005 due to a massive infestation of mountain pine beetles. Usually the beetles are kept in check by sufficiently cold winter spells (-35C kills them) but that didn't happen anymore and the beetles ran amok. Logging for the affected tree species has largely been stopped and mills that supported smaller towns shuttered.

Costs?

This study estimates the future provincial economic impacts of the MPB infestation in a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, by examining the effects of the reduction in timber supply from BC forests over the 2009–2054 period. Results suggest that there will be a cumulative present value loss of $57.37 billion (or 1.34 per cent) in GDP and a $90 billion decline in welfare (compensating variation) from 2009 to 2054 in BC.

Forest fires, BC and Alberta

From 2003 BC has had 4-5 seasons of extreme forest fires where the provincial government runs up bills of $500M+ in one season fighting fires. That's leaving aside insurance industry impact. Lytton got gutted in 2021 after a heat wave, but Fort McMurray in 2016 was a much higher impact fire, at $9B.

Drought impact to farmers, Prairies.

The severe, ongoing agricultural drought across the Prairie provinces is a concerning glimpse into the region’s future climate. Alberta alone is expected to pay out $1 billion in crop insurance as a result of the drought, while Saskatchewan has announced additional measures to support farmers struggling with dry conditions. In Manitoba, drought conditions are currently classified as “extreme” or “exceptional” by the Canadian Drought Monitor –where extreme and exceptional are defined as events that happen once every 20 years or 50 years, respectively. There are different ways of defining drought, so it is important to establish common ground.

Drought events across the Prairie provinces are anticipated to grow in frequency, duration, and severity over the coming decades as a result of climate change. Such a future could be devastating for the region’s economy: the Prairie provinces account for more than 80% of Canada’s agricultural land and more than half of all income generated by farming is earned on the Prairies.

Ice roads are becoming unreliable, High North

Canadian communities in the high North often rely on ice roads. Basically, given the huge distances and low population it is not feasible to build and maintain normal roads year round so instead trucks wait till everything ices up and drive on the hardened ground.

Without those? Air freight, baby. The season for those roads is already getting shorter.

Coastal flooding

I live in Vancouver, BC, which has some very, very expensive real estate. But a significant proportion of it would be at risk with a 90-150cm sea level increase by 2100, which is well within the range of median model predictions. Since we are on an estuary, protection isn't as simple as just recessing constructions a bit from the shoreline, parts of the greater metro area, such as Richmond are just low.

The map below, generated from Climate Central, shows the results of a 1.5C warming with the parts in turquoise under water at high tide (by 2100?) without mitigation. Our airport is also built on a low lying island in the estuary and will need dikes to protect it. Highway 99, linking to the US, would be underwater, as well as the ferry terminal to Vancouver Island. Ditto Richmond, both the city and a lot of farmland around it.

Storms, projected to become more violent, worsen this problem. And this not just a left coast issue, Halifax has potentially $1.9B of real estate at risk.

Housing/construction code will need to be adapted.

Last summer, Vancouver's general area suffered a massive heat wave. BC's coroner reported 559 heat deaths over 5 weeks, with the bulk, 445, during 1 week. One problem is that most residences do not have air conditioning and may not have appropriate ventilation.

I have some personal insight, having recently moved from one highrise to another. My summer '21 apartment faced northeast and really did not heat up all that much. It also had windows that opened up somewhat. The one I am now renting is facing southwest and has much smaller window openings. Both have large glass windows which will absorb heat very well. As a renter, I can just leave it, it is merely inconvenient. If I owned it however, I would have to face retrofitting air conditioning which might not be cheap at all. If heat waves become a recurring pattern, this will likely impact resale value of this type of real estate.

Bear in mind too, Canadian coasts are moderated by the oceans. Inland Canada can get extremely hot in summer, even when it is very cold in winter. Neither are "useful", economically.

Canada looks like it will need a lot more AC. Doesn't come free.

Erratic weather is costly.

Vancouver suffered extreme flooding in November 2021 and was temporarily cut off from most of the roads leading inland. Some of the most productive farming land in Canada, in the Fraser Valley was extensively flooded and then hit by severe frost a few weeks later. Costs? $450M. Government just pledged $228M just for the farmers, though I there may be some overlap between those 2 sums.

Farmers are very concerned about the impacts to their plants, most notably blueberries.

JonathanReez cautions about attributing climate change to the Nov 2021 floods, citing experts who are not convinced about current increased precipitation in the Pacific Northwest. That's a valid point: one event does not a pattern make. Climate change attribution is a probabilistic method: great podcast covering the methods used, 2+ hrs :-(.

However, even in the PNW, extreme rainfall is expected to increase in the future. And the Atlantic coast has seen increasing storms and storm surges in the last decade: we know warmer air soaks up more water.

Insurance premiums

Insurance premiums for flooding and forest fires are definitely on the rise. This is money straight out of consumer/business pockets.

Fisheries are a mixed bag.

There are possibilities of extra productivity in some cases, but West Coast salmon are in decline due to shallow, overheated, streams and oyster farms report significant die-offs, apparently linked to the effect of acidification on shell formation.

Trade

Though the question, as I see it, is solely looking at the economic effects to Canada, we are also a trading nation. If our trading partners can't afford our products due to their problems, we will ultimately suffer as well, economically.

And if their production costs are driven up by climate change impacts to their infrastructure, our purchases will also be more expensive.

Imagine if our local hipsters were deprived of their avocado toasts. The horror!

Conclusion

A number of these impacts have already happened, in 2022, while the climate models generally predict that it is going to get progressively worse. Against that we might get a longer growing season, supposedly benefiting farmers but see the caveats above, and will get reduced heating bills. Plus, possibly, some economic benefits, to Canada(?), from opening up the NorthWest Passage.

What has already happened has already cost us billions of dollars and is likely to get much worse.

While lowering our emissions will also cost us vastly greater sums of money they will also create new industries and new jobs. Rebuilding after insurance payouts for say forest fires does as well, to an extent. On the other hand some of the costs incurred, like firefighting or drought relief, are straight out losses - they don't generate new jobs or industries in any meaningful sense. Ditto for high-priced properties on waterfronts that need abandoning or hefty view-blocking dikes.

I don't think the math adds up, for Canada. We won't benefit.

To be clear there are 3 types of monetary amounts here.

1. Benefits, to Canada itself, of climate change.
2. Losses, to Canada, due to climate change.
3. Costs to Canada, to fight or mitigate climate change.

My answer here is that 2), the losses, trump 1), the gains. By a large amount. This answer isn't really preoccupied with quantifying 3), the costs of measures to address climate change, because that is not needed to dispute a claim of net gain to Canada.

p.s.

Switching to renewables and electricity rather than fossil fuels, while it comes at a high upfront cost, can save money in the long term. Of course what type of renewables and what type of electricity generating capacity is being used may be tricky to optimize, economically, but that's a different question.

p.p.s. Quick blurb about Russia, the other big Northern country.

(I don't pretend to know much, but it also does not look unequivocally rosy either from this)

In June of this year, regional officials in Stravopol, one of Russia’s major wheat regions, projected a remarkable 40 percent decline in wheat crop in 2020 as a result of droughts.

...

An increase in droughts, floods, wildfires, permafrost damage, and disease could lower GDP by 3 percent annually in the next decade, according to Russia’s Audit Chamber. Climate damage to buildings and infrastructure alone could cost Russia up to 9 trillion rubles ($99 billion) by 2050, according to Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexander Krutikov.

p.p.p.s

At some point there was an ongoing comment thread about lethality risks of heat waves vs other natural hazards, including cold. Well, The Economist covered this on Sept 1st, 2022 - Heatwaves kill more Americans than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. A picture is worth 1000 words though:

Answer 2

Given this, why is it becoming so "politically correct" for nations in the world to form a joint force to fight global warming? Why should any country be blamed/discriminated for not being part of it?

Because the benefits of global warming don't outweigh its downsides. Sure, if you consider only some of the effects at a local level then it might seem that global warming is a good thing. If you consider more effects, however, then it becomes clear that many people would be worse with more global warming.

So let's consider the first article you mentioned by consultancy.eu. Even if the underlying research has been retracted, the article provides an interesting view on potential implications:

So the Czech Republic is poised to benefit from any increase in emissions, no matter how intense. The country is not alone in this position. In fact, the analysis suggests that around 70 countries in total stand to benefit from higher temperatures. Fellow cold climate countries Russia, Canada, Mongolia, Finland, Kyrgystan, Norway, Tajikistan, Sweden, Iceland and North Korea are all in the same boat.

On the flipside, nearly 130 countries stand to face negative economic consequences from climate change. The worst affected appear to be the hottest – Deloitte lists a number of Middle Eastern and African countries such as Mali, Qatar, Sudan and Kuwait, among others, as those which stand to lose the most from global warming.

One way of reading those paragraphs is that there will be winners and losers. The article, I am not sure about the underlying research, does not go into the implications of having winners and losers. One of the implications will be that those who lose out on the benefits, for example because their homes become uninhabitable, will flee.

As stated in an article on weforum.org:

In April, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released data showing that the number of people displaced by climate change-related disasters since 2010 has risen to 21.5 million, pointing out that “in addition to sudden disasters, climate change is a complex cause of food and water shortages, as well as difficulties in accessing natural resources.”

Sea-level rise is another threat. Over the past 30 years, the number of people living in coastal areas at high risk of rising sea levels has increased from 160 million to 260 million, 90% of whom are from poor developing countries and small island states. For example, in Bangladesh it is predicted that 17% of the country will be submerged by the rise in sea level by 2050, and 20 million people living there will lose their homes.

The Ecosystem Threat Register (ETR) released in September 2018 by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), an Australian international think tank, points out that at least 1.2 billion people could be displaced by these threats by 2050. In this context, the international response to the problem has gradually begun to progress.

Those are serious numbers. To put them into context, the 2015 European migrant crisis came with 1.3 million asylum requests, per Wikipedia. According to pewresearch.org, migrant - border patrol interactions at the US Mexico border hit a 21 year high in 2021 with almost 200,000 monthly encounters.

If we look at 2016 statistics by the UN Refugee Agency we find that most populations of concern are so-called IDPs. Those are internally displaced persons who are like refugees but within their own country.

Climate change hits at a larger scale. It's not like an industrial city that loses its status where people can just move to another city and live on. According to Scientific American:

A three-foot rise in sea level would submerge almost 20 percent of the entire country and displace more than 30 million people. Some scientists project a five-to-six foot rise by 2100, which would displace perhaps 50 million people. As perspective, the ongoing tragedy in Syria has caused the exodus of approximately three million people.

Given this prospect of a climate refugee crisis, I think it makes sense that countries want to minimize the impact. Even if a country is not adversely affected by climate change itself, it may have to deal with a refugee crisis it cannot handle. I think the refugee angle alone is enough for there to be a consensus that climate change is an issue that needs to be countered, at least from the perspectives of governments which take a longer term view.

Answer 3

Given the uncertainty around the possible benefits (or harms) of climate change, the precautionary principle (PP) compels all nations to action

Article 3 (Principles) of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states (emphasis added):

The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost-effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost. To achieve this, such policies and measures should take into account different socio-economic contexts, be comprehensive, cover all relevant sources, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases and adaptation, and comprise all economic sectors. Efforts to address climate change may be carried out cooperatively by interested Parties.

"The Parties" refers to the 197 signatories to the framework, which includes essentially every nation on earth (pending answers here).

Several comments and answers here point out the lack of certainty as to whether any nation will truly benefit from climate change. Following the precautionary principle, this lack of certainty -- and the volume of evidence showing that harm may occur -- is itself sufficient to prompt action.

In 2005, the UNESCO's World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST), in their formulation of the precautionary principle emphasized that cases like this are exactly where the principle should be applied:

The PP applies to a special class of problems that is characterized by: (1) complexity in the natural and social systems that govern the causal relationships between human activities and their consequences and (2) unquantifiable scientific uncertainty in the characterization and assessment of hazards and risks. The existing decision-support tools to cope with risks in a rational way, such as probabilistic risk assessment and cost benefit analysis, have limited value under these conditions.

Obviously, the application of this principle is the subject of vigorous, extended debate, but what should be obvious is that doing nothing is not an option. All nations have agreed to this minimum standard since 1992. The challenge is to determine how much each nation should do, not whether or not they should do something.

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I debated adding a discussion of the ethical justification for the precautionary principle, but I'm no philosopher, and such a discussion likely goes beyond the scope of this site. But I did find two resources that may be of interest:

• Rechnitzer, Tanja (2020). Precautionary Principles. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• McKinnon, Catriona (2009). Runaway climate change: A justice-based case for precautions. Journal of Social Philosophy.

Answer 4

Imagine you're the head of state of a country that produces and exports fossil fuels. Much of the economy of your country depends on fossil fuels.

If your country is a liberal democracy, you have petroleum companies lobbying to protect their revenue; they can also wield influence over political parties to advance their interests. There is also a portion of voters who work in the petroleum industry, and some others (investors, etc.) who are making money from the sector, and who expect that you'll protect their money and their jobs.

If it's a dictatorship of some kind, the mechanism is more occult but is still there. The petroleum industry has close ties to the palace, and the political and economic stability of the régime depends on everybody having a job, on money flowing in from other countries, etc.

In both cases, the fossil fuels may also present an interest beyond the money, providing some strategic power over the countries at the other end of your pipelines. They know you can cut off their heat, and that their military forces can't do much without fuel.

The experts tell you that the burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet and will harm your own population. It's too late to eliminate the threat, but it would be mitigated if carbon emissions were reduced. They are entirely right, and you (the head of state) know it. However, it's difficult to ascertain what the exact consequences will be. Bad crops? People dying of heat exhaustion? No more Caribbean cruises? Flooded condos? Climate refugees? Oranges groves instead of wheat fields? Invasive species? Less snow? More rain? Less rain?

So you (the head of state) have a choice:

Option A:

Reduce production and export of fossil fuels in order to mitigate the effects of climate change. Invest heavily in renewable energy or nuclear plants, train petroleum workers to work in the new windmill factories, etc. This will probably reduce your country's revenue in the short-to-medium term, so you will probably have to raise taxes. It may reduce your ability to control other countries.

It will have some effect on the climate; but the positive effects will not be measurable: nobody can give hard numbers on what would have happened if you hadn't done it. It is DEFINITELY less certain than the status quo, and uncertainty is not good for markets or governments. Democracy or not, everybody will know that you, the leader, decided to do this.

Option B:

Keep producing and exporting fossil fuels as long as you can. Maybe actively deny that the problem exists. The consequences are not yet a problem for your régime, and you can blame others (or randomness, or gods) when the rivers flood and the fields burn. The economy will keep going in the short run. Since you're not visibly changing anything, there may not be a political cost to this, for you at least.

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So it's a classic Tragedy of the commons. The whole plan will work if all large countries choose A together, but many perceive they have an advantage if they choose B.

The main option to entice governments to choose A is to shame them into doing so. To make it clear to everyone that, if they choose B, it's a deliberate choice, not just a default option, and a choice driven by economic and political greed.

Oh, there's a third option:

Option C:

Sign the protocols as if you're choosing A, invest in renewables moderately, come up with 5-year plans on climate mitigation, put in some subsides for solar panels, but also keep the fossil fuels flowing to limit the economic and political cost.

Note: I want governments to choose A, it's the right thing to do from a survival standpoint. But the above is my understanding of why some won't.

Answer 5

Nations that truly benefit from a warming climate, and those that can easily compensate, have no incentive to prevent it; it is that easy.

But then there may not be as much benefit as some authors think. The indirect effects of climate change like migration and disruption of the global economy have been mentioned already.

But even the direct benefits for Russia are probably overstated because while Siberia may become more hospitable and fertile, other parts of Russia will become too hot and dry, leading to smaller harvests, forest fires and insect plagues. The hospitable and fertile zone does not grow as much as it shifts, with all the friction coming with large-scale changes and internal migration.

Another aspect is that climate weirding may be more pronounced than the actual warming. Changing precipitation patterns with more extreme events like droughts and floods as well as more extreme heat and cold (!), caused by disturbances of the polar vortex, will cause large-scale damage. Extensive forest and peat fires, already rampant in Siberia, will intensify after more severe droughts and heat. An ecosystem adjusted to the Siberia of old is undergoing a profound change. Even if the eventual new equilibrium is advantageous the transition will be long, damaging and at times catastrophic.

The other Northern countries like Canada, Greenland and Scandinavia are irrelevant on the global scale.

Answer 6

The question is heavily dependent on the time horizon. In the short to medium term, it is true that some countries could benefit from global warming. In the long term, however, and assuming generally accepted temperature projections are accurate, everybody loses and there is no such thing as some countries benefitting from global warming. In addition, the fight against global warming may start being effective only in many years, by which time it is highly likely that most countries getting to reap benefits from higher temperatures will already have been satisfied. As a result, yes it seems constructive for the whole world to work in the same direction.

Answer 7

The easy answer is that in the long run, nobody will benefit from climate change. Saying that some nations "stand to benefit" from climate change is like standing on the stern of the Titanic and saying you can't possibly be sinking, because you and your immediate surroundings are going up instead of down.

If you want to know why it's becoming acceptable for the international community to exert pressure (or "blame") on nations that don't want to help stop climate change... well, we've got a wide range of words to describe a person who refuses to help their group solve a problem because they, personally, could benefit from the problem not being solved. Most of the good ones aren't fit for the sort of civil discourse that this site wants to encourage, but I'm sure you can think of some.

Answer 8

There are serious impacts of global warming for countries in the global north, even if the the brunt of the impact is going to affect countries in the global south. One important impact has been the frequency and severity of recent heat-waves. Another will be the impact on agriculture and fisheries.

Thirty years ago when the science was already pointing at anthropogenic climate change, the impact although forseen was so distant that policy and law makers could leave the problem to another day, another year. This was a mistake, because the earlier this was dealt with, the easier it would be. Now that the impact is more or less visible, the question arises why more wasn't done earlier. Much of the blame is due to climate denialism by the big fossil fuel companies.

In fact, Reuters reported last year that the US Congress will subpoena executives of major oil companies for documents prepared by their company scientists on climate change. This was after virtual questioning by a panel of Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, Gretchen Watkins, CEO of Shell Oil, Darren Lawler, CEO of BP America and Mike Wirth, CEO of Chevron on their responsibility for a climate disinformation campaign to block strong climate change action.

Democrat Ro Khanna had said whilst these companies havd improved their position publically, "they undermined it by supporting lobbying groups that deny climate science or fight proposals to fight climate change."

It's very likely that in the future that a class-action suit against these companies and similar to the class action suit against big tobacco for denying the science showing the cancerous effect of smoking will fine them in the hundreds of billions for costs to mitigate against climate change or as punitive damages. In fact, given that a class-action suit against the major tobacco companies around twenty years ended in a $200 billion dollar settlement over 25 years with some costs in perpetuity, and the size of the fossil fuel industry compared to the tobacco industry, its likely a final settlement will end up in the trillions of dollars.

Answer 9

Why should the Czech republic care? Because they're in the European union.

Maybe the Czech economy will benefit from global warming, other countries in the EU will hurt.

The Czech get billions in European funds, why would countries that get hurt by global warming want to keep subsidizing the Czech if they wouldn't care about global warming?

Answer 10

Let me rephrase the question:

Why should businesses that stand to benefit from crime have to contribute to the fight against it?

Bail bondsmen, police funding, private jails, all benefit from increased crime. However the total cost to society dwarfs the benefits to the few who do benefit.

Additionally, Canada will have to adapt to handling refugees from climate-devastated countries. Is their current way of life and population density likeable to Canadians? Because that is sure to change as people flee to the now better-off Canadian clime.

Answer 11

While OK, Antarctica may become the arable land with its mineral resources accessible, there are two big concerns in welcoming such a big changes:

• The world is now in some balance. Now existing countries may find big parts of they territory becoming just a desert, while it is not clear whom that Antarctica would belong. Wars and chaos over whole world are likely when all nations need to move or just disappear.
• There are some sayings that the process of warming may get runaway, making all or vast majority of Earth impossible to live.

These two concerns make the global warming unwanted even for states that may benefit from it if staying in isolation. Like roughly near 80% of the surface of Greenland is covered by ice and this country benefits from global warming for sure, but what if numerous ships full of refugees start sailing there from Africa and Asia when this sheet melts? They need to come here because they original land does not longer support the human existence. If Greenland refuses, they just declare the war. Not good at all, so Greenland "takes the climate crisis seriously" instead.

The "Venus scenario" likely does not need the further comments.