The losses of labor productivity due to climate change are truly staggering. Most will happen in tropical countries where outdoor workers (farmers, construction workers, etc.) won’t be able to work in the heat of mid-day.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27328-y
**ncreased labor losses and decreased adaptation potential in a warmer world**
**by Luke A. Parsons, Drew Shindell, Michelle Tigchelaar, Yuqiang Zhang & June T. Spector, Nature Communications, 14 December 2021**
**...**
**In the current climate approximately 30% of global heavy labor losses in the workday could be recovered by moving labor from the hottest hours of the day [to the cooler hours of early morning or evening]. However, we show that this particular workshift adaptation potential is lost at a rate of about 2% per degree of global warming as early morning heat exposure rises to unsafe levels for continuous work, with worker productivity losses accelerating under higher warming levels....**
**Labor productivity losses associated with reductions in work rate due to heat exposure can be as high as ~280–311 billion $US per year, most of which are due to losses in low- and middle-income countries in heavy manual labor, such as agriculture and construction. In the coming century, human-driven warming of the planet will push many low-latitude regions even further into uncomfortable and unsafe conditions for outdoor labor, with heat exposure increasing relatively linearly as a function of global temperatures...** [end quote]
Low and middle income countries have made important progress in per capita GDP the past 20 years. They are important export markets for U.S. goods. Economic setbacks due to labor losses will be terrible for billions of people.
The U.S. will feel the economic impact in a diluted way.
Wendy