OPINION: Tuesday was warm. Freakishly warm by early August standards. In our inner west Sydney office, we didn’t need any heating until…the sun went down.
This morning I woke with trepidation. The doona was already too hot. I thought of Europe and Canada burning our glorious Earthly bounty. Those gifts from the gods that we have trashed.
Then the big headline in the New York Times, Heat, Fire, Smoke and Storms Are Wreaking Havoc on the Economy
It digs into the personal first – small businesses working furiously to save their stocks when the energy grid fails, or paying a fortune to keep their places airconditioned so they can continue to stay open.
“Multiply them by millions to understand approximately the financial toll this brutal summer of heat, fires, smoke and storms has taken on businesses and households around the world,” the article continues before heading into some seriously deep dives on the impact economy wide.
Here’s a quick summary because I’m not seeing this story screaming from our own media in sufficient quantities and quality to land with the same impact:
- This July was the hottest month on record in the contiguous United States, according to federal data, and Western Europe experienced its hottest June-to-July average ever recorded
- Most estimates for damage caused to date have been moderate, while projections for damage over the long run become more drastic. But the past year has delivered climate-related shocks that are becoming impossible for businesses to avoid.
- Allianz Research analysed the likely economic impact… France, Japan, Italy, Germany and Spain, would be 5 to 7 per cent lower than their base-line trajectories by 2030.
- Tax revenues down because so much more is needed to repair infrastructure
- Projects are not realised “Already 2026 is going higher than that,” Allianz says
- Rising costs of energy costs and renewables struggle to work efficiently in extreme heat
- Productivity suffers: construction times are shortened, people loose sleep, schools and childcare shuts down, parents can’t work
- A working paper published in July found that state-level economic conditions in the United States deteriorated for months after a heat wave
- Tourism suffers after wildfires this study says and fires are threatening big European cities
- An unusually strong El Niño will disrupt food supplies in many parts of the world and heat damages crops
- Inflation rises and so, eventually, must interest rates
- Insurance fails
- McKinsey says full protections globally would cost around $540 billion a year
And here’s the bit for our industry:
“Eleni Myrivili, the chief heat officer for the United Nations Human Settlements Program, cautions that airconditioning can’t be the only solution. Although it has allowed wealthy societies to develop in the desert, committing to energy-intensive cooling systems may not be feasible on a global scale, as electricity becomes more difficult and expensive to generate.
“That’s why in the medium term, she’s pushing for building designs that keep interiors cooler and greenery-filled streetscapes that absorb heat rather than reflect it, and pushing against new development in the hottest places.”
We need to look at cooling – in buildings and our cities – as “less of an appliance issue and more of a systemic issue,” chief heat officer, says
