New Report: "Overheated: How Flawed Analyses Overestimate the Costs of Climate Change"

NEW YORK, NY – What kind of disruptions should Americans anticipate from climate change? According to the studies that have informed federal policy, the future is dire: increased deaths from extreme heat and air pollution, as well as reduced economic productivity. In a groundbreaking new report, however, MI senior fellow Oren Cass demonstrates that these forecasts are wrong.

The problem is not with climate science but with implausible assumptions built into economic models, which produce outlandish results: heat-related mortality in Pittsburgh reaching a level 75 times higher than in present-day Phoenix, for instance, or Mongolia’s per-capita income outpacing America’s by a factor of four. This is what happens when researchers choose to rely on abstract statistical models that assume society will make no adaptation to rising temperatures.

Cass shows that with reasonable assumptions about future adaptation, the forecasted costs of climate change plummet—sometimes by more than 90 percent. Climate change will still have significant costs, which policymakers should consider carefully and prepare to address. And they will need methodologically sound research to guide their choices. But studies that inflate costs while downplaying the potential for adaptation are actively misleading and thus counterproductive.

Click here to read the full report.