Climate change could hit Canada’s GDP by 6% over long term, new report warns

A report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects that continuing changes to weather patterns from emissions could cut Canada’s real GDP by 5.8 per cent by 2100.

As world leaders gather for a United Nations climate conference, a new report is warning that climate change could cost the Canadian economy billions of dollars over the coming decades.

The report published Tuesday by the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that continuing changes to weather patterns from emissions are projected to cut Canada’s real GDP by 5.8 per cent by 2100.

“Our analysis shows that climate change has — and will continue — to negatively impact the Canadian economy,” PBO Yves Giroux said in a statement.

However, the report acknowledged the data leaves several open questions, and that “not fully captured in our analysis are some complex issues such as adaptation, international economic spillovers, transition within industries and regions, as well as exceptional increases in extreme weather events.”

The projection by the budget watchdog is “a means to focus on climate policy, even if uncertainty in a broad range of areas (such as emissions, climate impacts and GDP impacts) makes this analysis highlyconditional,” Giroux noted in the report.

“If global policies remain closer to current settings … the negative impact on Canada’s GDP would be even larger.”

Already last year, the effects of rising temperatures and precipitation reduced the country’s real GDP by 0.8 per cent, the PBO report said, and warned “severe climate events” are expected by scientists to continue to rise as the climate changes.

Across Canada, recent extreme weather events have had a major economic impact.