El Niño phenomenon could generate a multi-year recession, according to a study

The economic consequences of the El Niño phenomenon may persist for several years after the actual occurrence and cost trillions in lost revenue worldwide, indicates a study that publishes Science.

(See: Recession winds are approaching Latin America and Colombia would not ‘be saved’).

In years when it occurs, El Niño triggers far-reaching climate changes that cause devastating floods crop-killing droughts, plummeting fish stocks, and an uptick in tropical diseases.

With the forecast that El Niño will return this 2023, a team from Dartmouth College (USA) publishes a study that is one of the first to evaluate its long-term costs and indicates losses much higher than those estimated by previous research.

The team used models and examined global economic activity in the decades following the the El Niño phenomena of 1982-83 and 1997-98, discovering a “persistent signature“of slowing economic growth more than five years later.

Globally, the effects of El Niño can be attributed global revenue losses of $4.1 trillion and $5.7 trillion, respectively, in the half decade after each of these two phenomena studied, most of them in charge of the poorer nations of the tropics.

(See: The areas where the energy rate would rise the most due to El Niño).

The researchers project global economic losses in the 21st century to reach $84 trillion, as climate change could amplify the frequency and intensity of El Niño, even if current commitments to reduce carbon emissions are met, they say. Darthmouth College in a statement.

The researchers calculate that the El Niño phenomenon forecast for this 2023 could slow down the world economy by up to $3 trillion between now and 2029.

(See: Asoenergía warns of the impact of summer on the electrical system).

“We can say with certainty that societies and economies do not recover on their own“said Christopher Callahan, a signatory to the study, adding that his data suggest that a post-El Niño recession can last up to 14 years, if not longer.

Economic recession

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“In the tropics and in places affected by El Niño, growth is retarded for at least five years“, he explained.

“The aggregate price of these events has never been fully quantified: you have to add up all depressed growth in the future, not just when the event occurs“.

The study indicates that the phenomena of 1982-83 and 1997-98 made the United States Gross Domestic Product was about 3% lower in 1988 and 2003 than it would have been but for them.

(See: When would the El Niño phenomenon arrive and how prepared we are).

However, the GDP of tropical coastal nations such as Peru and Indonesia was lower by more than 10% that same year.

The global pattern of the effect of El Niño on the climate and on the prosperity of the different countries “reflects the unequal distribution of wealth and climate risk, not to mention the responsibility of climate change, around the world“, affirmed the also author of the study Justin Mankin, of the same educational center.

El Niño -added- “amplifies the broader inequities of climate change, disproportionately affecting the least resilient and prepared among us“.

EFE