https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impacts_of_climate_ch... and the more alarmist https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/impact-climate-change... say that the global economic impact of climate change will likely amount to about 10% of world GDP, and perhaps as much as 20%.

Those are huge, huge numbers! But to put them in perspective, it's less than the difference between living in, say, present day US vs present day UK. Big impact, but hardly planetarily existential.

And, yes, there's more to live than economics. But if life goes on normally enough that we can even not only still talk about GDP with any meaning, but even say that we are going to preserve 80% to 90% of GDP, things won't be too apocalyptic.

Keep in mind that this is 80% of a far larger pie than today, since normal economic growth will continue.

So maybe that's why governments don't act, relying on abstract GDP numbers. «A good chunk of the tropical era of the world is going to be uninhabitable[1]? Who cares, it's only gonna cost us 10% of GDP».

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/climate/climate-change-he...

> it's less than the difference between living in, say, present day US vs present day UK. Big impact, but hardly planetarily existential.

Like, the difference between living in Birmingham or living in the death valley?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/world/canada/bc-canada-he...

Well, no, the planet will not be destroyed. The issue is the lifestyle of the semi-hairless apes on the planet.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impacts_of_climate_ch... and the more alarmist https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/impact-climate-change... say that the global economic impact of climate change will likely amount to about 10% of world GDP, and perhaps as much as 20%

No, its that it will grow to that share by 2050 (which is less than 30 years away) and keep growing.

> At a (somewhat generous) 3% baseline growth rate,

At a fairly generous 3% baseline growth rate, 2.35× current world GDP, for a projected population of 9.7 billion to todays 7.9 billion, so (pre-climate change impacts) a little under double the current GDP/capita.

Of course, the losses arent, expected to be evenly distributed among countries, regions, etc., so if you aren't a well-diversified capitalist (say you are working class) and in the wrong place or industry, you have a good chance at seeing dramatically* greater impacts.

> Of course, the losses arent, expected to be evenly distributed among countries, regions, etc., so if you aren't a well-diversified capitalist (say you are working class) and in the wrong place or industry, you have a good chance at seeing dramatically* greater impacts.

Yes, averages hide a lot of variance.

Of course, this is another good reason in favour of allowing freer migration around the globe.

From the perspective of the people in places likely to see lesser adverse impacts, its a reason against freer inbound migration.

Of course, now we'd have to discuss who 'you' is. If you are talking about individual people, or about eg some statistical measure of the country or county as a whole.

See also https://openborders.info/keyhole-solutions/ which would suggest to eg just charge people to immigrate.