(p. A15) “An Inconvenient Truth” promoted the frightening narrative that higher temperatures mean more extreme weather, especially hurricanes. The movie poster showed a hurricane emerging from a smokestack. Mr. Gore appears to double down on this by declaring in the new film’s trailer: “Storms get stronger and more destructive. Watch the water splash off the city. This is global warming.”
This is misleading. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–in its Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013–found “low confidence” of increased hurricane activity to date because of global warming. Storms are causing more damage, but primarily because more wealthy people choose to live on the coast, not because of rising temperatures.
Even if tropical storms strengthen by 2100, their relative cost likely will decrease. In a 2012 article for the journal Nature Climate Change, researchers showed that hurricane damage now costs 0.04% of global gross domestic product. If climate change makes hurricanes stronger, absolute costs will double by 2100. But the world will also be much wealthier and less vulnerable, so the total damage is estimated at only 0.02% of global GDP.
For the full commentary, see:
Bjorn Lomborg. “Al Gore’s Climate Sequel Misses a Few Inconvenient Facts; Eleven years after his first climate-change film, he’s still trying to scare you into saving the world.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., July 28, 2017): A15.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 27, 2017.)