Evaluation of the Socio-Economic Impact of Climate Change in Belgium
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EVALUATION OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN BELGIUM STUDY COMMISSIONED BY THE NATIONAL CLIMATE COMMISSION Final Report Koen De Ridder1, Koen Couderé2, Mathieu Depoorter3, Inge Liekens1, Xavier Pourria3, David Steinmetz3, Eline Vanuytrecht1, Katelijne Verhaegen2, Hendrik Wouters1 1 VITO 2 KENTER 3 ECORES July 2020 (2020/RMA/R/2271) Table of Contents LIST OF ACRONYMS ______________________________________________________________ 4 1. INTRODUCTION ______________________________________________________________ 5 2. CLIMATE SCENARIOS _________________________________________________________ 7 2.1. INTRODUCTION __________________________________________________________ 7 2.2. TEMPERATURE __________________________________________________________ 8 2.3. PRECIPITATION _________________________________________________________ 10 2.4. EXTREME HEAT _________________________________________________________ 11 2.5. URBAN HEAT ISLAND _____________________________________________________ 12 2.6. COLD EPISODES _________________________________________________________ 16 2.7. EXTREME PRECIPITATION AND STORMS ______________________________________ 17 2.8. URBAN FLOODING _______________________________________________________ 20 2.9. EXTREME WIND _________________________________________________________ 20 2.10. DROUGHTS AND WATER SCARCITY __________________________________________ 20 2.11. SEA LEVEL RISE__________________________________________________________ 23 3. PHYSICAL IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ________________________________________ 26 3.1. HEALTH _______________________________________________________________ 26 3.2. INDUSTRY AND SERVICES _________________________________________________ 57 3.3. BIODIVERSITY___________________________________________________________ 66 3.4. INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT AND NETWORKS ______________________________ 76 3.5. ENERGY _______________________________________________________________ 84 3.6. FORESTRY _____________________________________________________________ 94 3.7. AGRICULTURE _________________________________________________________ 103 3.8. TOURISM _____________________________________________________________ 117 4. TRANSBOUNDARY IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE – CASES ________________________ 120 4.1. INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________ 120 4.2. RAW PRODUCTS _______________________________________________________ 120 4.3. FREIGHT AND IMPORT ___________________________________________________ 123 4.4. SEINE FLOOD, A DOMINO EFFECT FOR BELGIUM? _____________________________ 124 5. IDENTIFICATION OF ANALYSIS METHODS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC INDICATORS ________ 125 5.1. INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________ 125 5.2. STUDIES ANALYZED _____________________________________________________ 125 5.3. CLASSIFYING THE STUDIES _______________________________________________ 125 5.4. ANALYSIS OF METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES ___________________________________ 126 5.5. ANALYSIS OF INDICATORS ________________________________________________ 127 (c) 2011, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) NV. Alle rechten voorbehouden. 2 6. ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE _____________________________________ 132 6.1. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ______________________________________________ 132 6.2. HEALTH ______________________________________________________________ 135 6.3. LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY _________________________________________________ 141 6.4. INFRASTRUCTURE – FLOODING ____________________________________________ 147 6.5. INFRASTRUCTURE – DROUGHT AND HEAT ___________________________________ 161 6.6. THE ENERGY SECTOR ____________________________________________________ 163 6.7. AGRICULTURE _________________________________________________________ 167 6.8. FORESTRY ____________________________________________________________ 176 6.9. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES ___________________________________________________ 182 6.10. INSURANCE ___________________________________________________________ 186 6.11. TRANSBOUNDARY IMPACTS ______________________________________________ 190 6.12. SYNTHESIS OF SECTORAL COSTS AND GAINS _________________________________ 191 7. SOCIAL ASPECTS ___________________________________________________________ 192 7.1. INTRODUCTION ________________________________________________________ 192 7.2. CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL VULNERABILITY ________________________________ 192 7.3. RELATION BETWEEN SOCIO-ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY AND PHYSICAL PARAMETERS 194 7.4. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS ON THE FUTURE COST OF LIVING ___________________ 198 7.5. EFFECTS OF CLIMATE POLICIES ____________________________________________ 201 8. CASE STUDIES _____________________________________________________________ 205 8.1. FRENCH FRIES INDUSTRY _________________________________________________ 205 8.2. BREWING INDUSTRY ____________________________________________________ 208 8.3. OFFICE WORK _________________________________________________________ 213 9. CONCLUSIONS _____________________________________________________________ 217 APPENDIX. SECTORAL CLIMATE IMPACTS MATRIX ____________________________________ 219 REFERENCES __________________________________________________________________ 223 (c) 2011, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) NV. Alle rechten voorbehouden. 3 LIST OF ACRONYMS AM Adapted Management AR5 Assessment Report 5 (published by the IPCC) B€ Billion (109) euro CDD Cooling Degree Days CF Capacity Factor CMIP5 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 CORDEX. Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment CPI Consumer Price Index DJF / JJA December-January-February (Winter) / June-July-August (Summer) FWI Fire Weather Index GCM Global Climate Model GDP Gross Domestic Product GVA Gross Value Added ha Hectare HDD Heating Degree Days or Heatwave Degree Days (depending on context) IPBES Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change JRC Joint Research Centre of the European Commission M€ Million (106) euro Mtoe Megaton of Oil Equivalent NCC National Climate Commission NDVI Normalised Difference Vegetation Index ( Amount of green biomass) NDWI Normalised Difference Water Index (sensitive to plant water content) NWFP Non-Wood Forest Products RCM Regional Climate Model RCP Representative Concentration Pathway RMI Royal Meteorological Institute SSP Shared Socio-economic Pathway TAW Total Available Water TM Traditional Management TWh Terra Watt hour WBGT Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (c) 2011, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek (VITO) NV. Alle rechten voorbehouden. 4 1. INTRODUCTION Today, the average global temperature has increased by more than 1°C compared to pre-industrial values (Figure 1-1); atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen from 280 to more than 400 ppm. At the current pace of emissions, the carbon budget that is left for staying below the 2°C target of the Paris Agreement will be depleted in a few tens of years. For the 1.5°C target, this budget will be exhausted before the decade is out. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are becoming increasingly apparent. In recent years Belgium has experienced persistently mild winters, recurring drought episodes and a succession of hot summers, culminating in the unprecedented temperature extremes recorded during the summer of 2019. These phenomena have already affected agricultural yield, mortality figures and labour productivity loss, among other. Figure 1-1. Annual average, global 60-month average near-surface air temperature relative to the pre-industrial period. Source: Copernicus Climate Change Service. Realising that some level of climate change has become unavoidable, it is now important to direct considerable actions and resources towards adaptation, apart from pursuing efforts towards the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. To develop relevant and effective adaptation plans and measures, it is of paramount importance to gain insight into the physical climate risk that is expected to affect society. Moreover, to be able to compare climate risk and the associated damage across sectors, it is useful to quantitatively express damage in a harmonized fashion by expressing it as a monetary value. This report provides an overview of the socio-economic impact of climate change in Belgium, resulting from a literature-based study conducted between November 2019 and July 2020. While working from an existing body of literature has the advantage of allowing to quickly collect and process large amounts of information, it also comes with its limitations. One such limitation is related to the fact that, most of the time, the available information pertains to regions outside Belgium or for a portion of Belgium only; converting impacts and costs to the Belgian situation has shown to be far from straightforward, often requiring a large number of (strong) assumptions. Another limitation resides in the fact that use of ‘the literature’ as a main source of (abundant yet scattered) information precludes the development of a fully coherent framework. Indeed, ideally one would follow a bottom-up approach, starting from e.g. consistent land use change scenarios and common methodologies to all sectors considered; and using a fixed set of time horizons and climate scenarios. In our study, we were at the mercy of whatever information was available in scientific papers and reports, each with its own approaches, scenarios and time horizons, making it sometimes hard to ensure an