Portuguese 
English 
Spanish 
4 min of reading 
0 comments 
International report points to growing systemic risk with direct impact on the global economy, highlighting how climate, nature, and economic activity are interconnected and could generate unprecedented losses in the coming decades if structural measures are not accelerated.
The climate crisis has moved beyond merely an environmental concern to directly influence analyses of economic stability, financial risk, and the continuity of productive activity on a global scale, altering how governments and markets perceive long-term threats.
According to a study by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, developed in partnership with scientists from the University of Exeter, climate shocks combined with environmental degradation could result in a loss of up to 50% of global GDP between 2070 and 2090, if structural measures are not intensified.
An essential part of this analysis considers that no economy operates independently of the planet’s physical conditions, as resources such as water, energy, food, fertile soil, and climate stability directly sustain production, consumption, credit, employment, and public revenue.
-
Alert for rain and thunderstorms: intense instability marks the transition between April 28 and May 1, with almost daily rain and high humidity, while the South faces storms, lows of 6 °C, risk of frost, and volumes of up to 80 mm.
-
The coldest afternoon of the year is already scheduled and could plummet to a high of 18°C this Tuesday with persistent rain and a feeling of unseasonal winter in Curitiba.
-
Waste that becomes a resource: Canadian researchers use black soldier fly larvae to transform goose feces into protein and fertilizer
-
Scientists’ breakthrough that could transform the energy industry: new membrane purifies hydrogen 10 times faster and reduces production time from 3 days to 3 hours
When these elements begin to suffer simultaneous and recurrent impacts, the effect ceases to be localized and starts to affect entire production chains, raising operational costs, pressuring prices, and reducing the response capacity of companies, governments, and families.
Climate crisis and global economic risk
Widely used economic models still treat these impacts in a limited way, according to the authors, by considering gradual scenarios that do not adequately incorporate extreme events, ecological collapses, forced migrations, and conflicts arising from natural resource scarcity.
At the same time, this more conservative reading contributes to a perception of stability that can delay strategic decisions, especially when interconnected risks begin to accumulate without being fully perceived by financial institutions and public policy makers.
In practice, episodes such as prolonged droughts or intense heatwaves already demonstrate the capacity to generate chain effects, impacting everything from agricultural production to the final price of food, with direct impacts on inflation, income, and consumption.
Furthermore, these shocks tend to cross geographical and sectoral boundaries, affecting financial markets, insurance systems, and logistical structures that depend on predictability to function efficiently.
Planetary solvency and economy
To address this scenario, the report introduces the concept of planetary solvency, adapting traditional actuarial tools to assess not only the financial health of institutions but also the capacity of natural systems to sustain economic activity over time.
In this context, elements such as biodiversity, water availability, food production, and habitability conditions are treated as fundamental assets, whose deterioration directly compromises economic stability and the continuity of global growth.
According to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, this approach seeks to offer a risk panel more aligned with the planet’s physical limits, allowing decisions to be made based on more realistic scenarios and less dependent on optimistic assumptions.
Global warming and accelerated impacts
Another relevant factor highlighted in the analyses involves the speed of global warming, especially given the reduction of aerosols from air pollution, which historically contributed to masking part of the temperature increase by reflecting solar radiation.
With the decrease of this cooling effect, a portion of the already accumulated warming tends to become more evident, raising concern about the possibility that critical limits will be reached more quickly than predicted in previous projections.
In this scenario, the risks associated with extreme events, damage to human health, pressure on the cost of living, population displacement, and instability in water and food supply systems increase.
Concurrently, concern grows about the withdrawal of insurance coverage in regions exposed to floods, fires, and rising sea levels, which can increase the economic vulnerability of areas already considered critical.
Domino effect on the global economy
The comparison with financial crises serves as a reference to understand how systemic risks can accumulate silently until they reach a critical point, at which time the impacts begin to spread rapidly across sectors and regions.
Unlike previous episodes, however, the climate crisis directly affects the material basis of the economy, simultaneously compromising infrastructure, production, supply, and living conditions, which significantly expands its capacity to generate prolonged instability.
In response, the report highlights the need to combine mitigation and adaptation strategies, including emission reduction, combating deforestation, ecosystem restoration, and accelerating the energy transition.
These measures are presented as part of a strategy to preserve productive capacity, reduce future losses, and prevent climate shocks from compromising the regular functioning of the global economy in different regions.
Be the first to react!