Climate Change to Increase Cost of $43 Trillion By 2200

The findings of a new study have warned that if the world’s permafrost layer melts down, the situation could result in an addition of over $43 trillion to the already massive climate-related debt faced by humanity.

As per estimations, the gross domestic product of the United States was nearly $17.5 trillion in 2014. But the study has shown that the cost of climate change in the next two centuries will be more than two-and-a-half times of America's GDP.

Kevin Schaefer, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and one of the authors of the report, said that the melting of the permafrost will cost an “economic death sentence”, which will be beyond imagination.

The report, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, looks at a previously under-examined contributor to global climate change i.e. the permafrost, or the region of permanently frozen ground that occurs in the world's coldest places.

Schaefer and co-author Chris Hope, a public policy expert at the University of Cambridge, said in a statement that untracked global warming could melt the permafrost, resulting in 10,000 years worth of trapped organic matter to decompose.

This decomposition could easily double the amount of greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere, Schaefer said. “This frozen carbon is like broccoli in your freezer: If you thaw it out and put it in your fridge it'll eventually decay and go bad”, said Schaefer.

As per the estimates presented by study authors, the methane and carbon dioxide released due to decay of the organic matter will exacerbate climate change at a cost of $43 trillion by 2200.