Quiz 1: Scanning for Details

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Global Warming to Cost $2 Trillion in Lost Productivity by 2030

Rising temperatures caused by climate change may cost the world economy over $2 trillion in lost productivity by 2030 as hot weather makes it unbearable to work in some parts of the world according to U.N. research published Tuesday.

It showed that in Southeast Asia alone, up to 20 percent of annual work hours may already be lost in jobs with exposure to extreme heat — with the figures set to double by 2050 as the effects of climate change deepen. Across the globe, 43 countries will see a fall in their gross domestic product (GDP) due to reduced productivity, most of them in Asia including Indonesia, Malaysia, China, India, and Bangladesh, researcher Tord Kjellstrom said. Indonesia and Thailand could see their GDP reduced by 6 percent in 2030, while in China GDP could be reduced by 0.8 percent and in India by 3.2 percent.

"Current climate conditions in tropical and subtropical parts of the world are already so hot during the hot seasons that occupational health effects occur and work capacity for many people is affected," said Kjellstrom, a director at the New Zealand-based Health and Environment International Trust. He said the increasing need for rest "is likely to become a significant problem" as climate change makes the hottest days hotter and leads to longer periods of excessively hot days.

Kjellstrom authored one of six papers on the impact of climate change on health that were put together by the United Nations University's International Institute for Global Health in Kuala Lumpur and published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health. Kjellstrom warned that the lowest-paid workers — those in heavy labor, agricultural and manufacturing — were most at risk of exposure to extreme heat.

He urged countries to take "decisive action" to tackle global warming. "Failure will cause the frequency and intensity of disasters to worsen dramatically beyond 2050, and the situation at the end of this century will be especially alarming for the world's poorest people," the researcher said.

© 2021 by FHI 360. "Quiz: Scanning for Details" for the Online Professional English Network (OPEN), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is an adaptation of "Global Warming to Cost $2 Trillion in Lost Productivity by 2030"  by VOA available under Public Domain / U.S. Government Works, and can be found here. Adapted content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/