“What will climate change cost us in Austria if we don't adapt?”
... is the core question of the COIN (COst of INaction) project, which is funded by the Climate and Energy Fund as part of the Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP).
The answer to this question is important for political decision-makers as well as for companies and private households, as it is ultimately a question of weighing up the right measures to keep the costs of climate change as low as possible.
To this end, a consortium of 12 Austrian research institutions is looking at the range of additional costs but also opportunities arising from climate change (without planned adaptation) in the coming decades and up to the year 2100. The focus of the possible effects of climate change is on 13 areas and fields of activity of the Austrian economy and society:
- Agriculture (see also Fact Sheet #2)
- Forestry (see also Fact Sheet #11)
- Health (see also Fact Sheet #6)
- Ecosystem services & biodiversity
- Water supply (see also Fact Sheet #7)
- Electricity (see also Fact Sheet #10)
- Building and housing
- Heating and cooling (see also Fact Sheet #10)
- Transportation and mobility (see also Fact Sheet #3)
- Production and trade (see also Fact Sheet #5)
- Disaster management (see also Fact Sheet #9)
- Urban space (see also Fact Sheet #8)
- Tourism (see also Fact Sheet #4)
In order to quantify these costs and benefits, COIN developed economic methods for assessing climate impacts and identified those climate conditions that cause costs for the respective areas.
For example, increased heat waves, such as those in 2003, and their effects on human health, especially for older and sick people, can lead to increased costs for the health and disaster management system in the future.
In order to gain an overall view of the potential costs, however, the 12 areas are not only considered separately. In the case of road damage caused by mudslides, for example, in addition to the direct costs of repair, passenger and freight traffic is also interrupted, which in turn can lead to losses in industrial production.
Losses in agricultural or forestry production in turn lead to losses in the processing sectors of the economy. Such correlations and subsequent effects are also mapped in COIN in order to be able to estimate the total of all costs considered - both direct and indirect.
All results from COIN will be published for a scientific audience in an internationally peer-reviewed book by Springer Verlag. In addition, COIN will provide summaries of the results in the form of fact sheets for decision-makers and the interested public.
Following the successful completion of the project, the results of COIN were presented by Minister Rupprechter at a press conference on January 15, 2015. In addition, a stakeholder workshop will be held on January 22, 2015 to discuss the results.
Further information can be found at https://coin.ccca.ac.at/
You can download the current COIN study “Climate policy in Austria: Corona crisis as an opportunity for innovation and the costs of inaction”.at (German only)