Climate change may cost California tens of billions of dollars
annually in the coming years as sea levels rise and hot days
cause people to turn up the air conditioning, a draft report
from the state said on Wednesday. Thirsty cities may be able to
buy water from farmers and high-altitude forests are expected to
benefit for most of the century as trees enjoy the warmer
weather, but a long-term effort to understand the details of
climate change suggests costs will be higher than expected. Much
depends on whether global efforts to slow the Earth’s heating
are successful. “Climate change will impose substantial costs to
Californians in the order of tens of billions of dollars
annually,” the Climate Action Team draft report said, adding
that “costs will be substantially lower if global emissions of
greenhouse gases are curtailed.” “On the whole, I am actually
less optimistic,” said Michael Hanemann, a co-director of the
California Climate Change Center at the University of
California, Berkeley, and an author of t