How global warming is changing the world. Analysis: part 2
Global climate change is no longer an exclusively environmental problem: it is increasingly affecting prices, production, energy and the well-being of the population. Water scarcity, extreme heat, and declining yields are already creating a chain of interrelated consequences — from rising prices to increased mortality, from labor market restructuring to the global redistribution of economic and natural resources. Izvestia examines this problem in a series of materials: in the first part, which areas are critically affected by global warming, provoking serious consequences and risks that trigger the trigger mechanism and are reflected in other sectors. The second is about how the situation in the energy sector, healthcare and the labor market is changing, changing people's lives, and the third is about what this will lead to in the near or distant future.
Energy industry
• Climate change has a double effect on energy. Firstly, this industry itself is largely responsible for the emissions that lead to global warming, and therefore has to undergo decarbonization in order not to worsen the situation. Secondly, the ongoing climate changes are changing the nature of energy consumption and reducing the efficiency of generation and networks, which is why the entire industry needs to adapt quickly to new challenges.
• Although the rising temperature on the planet leads to a decrease in heating needs, it also leads to a disproportionately large jump in demand for air conditioning. Abnormal heat causes much more problems than abnormal cold, as it affects more and more vast populated areas of the planet that have lived in a temperate climate for decades and did not require a special approach because of this. The existing power systems do not have the reserves that are needed during the summer days of increased peak load. In order for the infrastructure to cope with high demand, it needs modernization of existing networks and additional capacities.
• Hot weather reduces energy production itself for a variety of reasons. Droughts lead to the shallowing of rivers and reservoirs, which are necessary for the operation of hydroelectric power plants (HPPs) and the cooling of nuclear power plants. In the summer of 2026, this has already led to the shutdown of entire power units in Europe. Thermal power plants also cannot operate in the same mode at excessively high temperatures and are forced to reduce power in order not to damage the equipment. In addition to droughts, extreme precipitation and floods are becoming frequent, and they also negatively affect the operation of hydroelectric power plants.
• The unpredictability of climate change complicates the work of the energy sector. It is customary to build power plants and networks with the expectation of long-term operation for decades, all this time they need approximately the same conditions and estimated capacity. But changeable weather forces the usually sluggish industry to behave more flexibly, and this leads to additional costs. For decades, energy has been relatively cheap due to its long-range planning horizon, but now this advantage is being offset.
• The transition to solar and wind energy is not a universal solution that can increase the planned capacity and save its cost. The introduction of new power plants in place of the old ones leads to the reconstruction of the networks, which increases the cost of the green transition. In addition, solar and wind generation, due to its unstable nature of production, requires more battery capacity to store reserves and release during peak load.
Productivity and labor market
• Extreme heat directly affects labor productivity in almost all industries, but those that rely heavily on outdoor work, such as construction, mining, agriculture, logistics, and utilities, are particularly affected. Due to the heat, workers get tired faster, they need more breaks, concentration is lost and work safety decreases. The International Labor Organization at the United Nations has already estimated that heat stress will lead to the loss of working hours equivalent to 80 million full-time jobs if the global average temperature rises by 1.5 degrees by the end of the 21st century.
• New climatic conditions will create an even bigger gap between developed and developing countries. The latter rely heavily on relatively cheap labor, which does not require much investment to organize. But now their advantage becomes less valuable if every employee needs to reduce their working hours due to the hot weather. At the same time, it is developing countries that, as a rule, are already in hot climatic zones, where the situation is getting worse. At the same time, it is easier for rich developed countries to adapt to the changes.
• One of the long-term effects of climate change may be the growing demand for automation. In some cases, it will allow you to get rid of manual labor in adverse weather conditions, while also increasing productivity. Already, unmanned systems make it possible to replace people with machines where until recently it was impossible, for example, in harvesting. Climate change will only push for the widespread replacement of humans with more weather-resistant drones.
• In turn, this will lead to another painful transformation of the labor market. Millions of workers will lose their jobs as their labor becomes more expensive due to bad weather, but at the same time there will be an increased demand for managing automated systems, dealing with the effects of the elements, and adapting infrastructure to climate risks. The process of replacing some vacancies with others will not happen all at once and will lead to an imbalance of the labor market and social tension for some time. Climate migration will intensify it — thousands of people will be forced to leave less favorable areas for living and will look for work in places where simple manual labor is becoming less relevant.
Healthcare
• Global climate change is directly related to the health status of the population and the mortality rate. According to WHO, 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. As a result of exposure to factors such as malaria, heat stress, diarrhea and malnutrition alone, mortality will increase by about 250,000 cases per year from 2030 to 2050.
Thus, changes in precipitation patterns lead to more frequent floods during high water, which creates conditions for the spread of hepatitis A, dysentery, cholera and other gastrointestinal infections. In areas of the planet that are poorly covered by medical services, this leads to an increase in mortality. In these conditions, healthcare costs are also rising.
• Extreme heat also leads to premature deaths every year. In the summer of 2026 alone, more than 14,000 people died as a result of high temperatures in Germany, and about 7.5 thousand in France. Spain and Italy account for 4.5–5 thousand deaths each. Most of the dead are people over 75 years old. Heat acts as a trigger that provokes an exacerbation of cardiopulmonary diseases. As a result, the immediate cause of death is usually a heart attack, stroke, heart or kidney failure, or exacerbation of lung disease. Among young people, drowning as a result of swimming in undeveloped reservoirs is often the cause of death.
• An increase in average temperature is dangerously combined with another global trend — the general aging of the population. Due to the fact that older people are more susceptible to the severe effects of heat, the effect on demographics is stronger in countries where a high percentage of the population is over 65 years old. Accordingly, they have a higher mortality rate in summer, the burden on the healthcare system and infrastructure, which in the long run not only accelerates negative demographic dynamics, but also leads to an increase in the cost of medicine, an increase in inflation and slows down GDP growth.
• In addition, warming is changing the geography of the spread of infectious diseases spread by insects and ticks, such as dengue fever and malaria. The weather directly affects the rate of their reproduction, the duration of the active season and the habitat. According to WHO, today the global number of people at risk of arbovirus disease (a group of viruses that are transmitted to humans and animals through the bites of blood-sucking arthropods) is estimated at about 4 billion people, and by 2050 this figure will grow to 5 billion. This group of diseases includes Zika virus, chikungunya, dengue fever, tick-borne encephalitis, West Nile fever, and yellow fever.
• Another consequence is an increase in mortality, injuries, and diseases due to natural disasters: forest fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes not only directly lead to death and injury, but also cause lung diseases, blood poisoning, hepatitis, and other diseases. At the same time, the burden on medical institutions is increasing with reduced access to them.: The increased frequency of hurricanes leads to power outages, destruction of hospitals, roads, and reduced access to medical care.
Urban infrastructure
Cities in industrialized countries have been growing and developing for centuries in weather conditions that are increasingly different from the current ones. The main task has long been to keep buildings warm in winter, not to cool them. Now living conditions are changing, and many houses need renovation to avoid overheating, which leads not only to discomfort, but also to additional deterioration of utilities. Sometimes this can lead to whole cultural shifts. So, in Paris, residents are forced to abandon the famous zinc roofs, which form the historical appearance of the city, but make life under them unbearable.
• Cooling technologies are becoming relevant not only for individual buildings, but also for the entire urban environment. Modern cities are everywhere built of concrete, asphalt, tiles and glass, and these materials further increase the heat. Tall buildings with narrow streets also interfere with air circulation and interfere with natural ventilation. Climate change should push city authorities to become more active in landscaping and increase access to water through the construction of canals and fountains.
• Some megacities, such as Beijing and Amsterdam, are already moving towards the implementation of the "sponge cities" concept. It implies that the city should not let rainwater through itself, but absorb it. This can be achieved by introducing permeable materials instead of asphalt and concrete, organizing spaces for temporary reservoirs, and landscaping roofs and walls. This allows you to simultaneously avoid floods if the storm system cannot cope with the load, and cool the city due to additional water inflows.
• Climate change will push for the active introduction of electric transport, not only public, but also personal. Although this will increase the load on the power grid, inside cities it avoids unnecessary exhaust emissions and temperature increases typical of an urban environment. At the same time, the development of tram and trolleybus networks should be associated with adaptation to the worsening weather conditions, so that the infrastructure they need is able to cope with both the growing heat and abnormal rainfall.
• Separate challenges await coastal cities. First, they are faced with a gradual rise in the water level. Although there is no talk of flooding of large settlements yet, they will still be subject to some erosion due to flooding and salt water penetration. They will have to allocate additional funds for the construction of dams and pumping to avoid negative consequences in the future. Secondly, climate change is provoking more and more frequent disasters, and coastal cities are already at high risk of hurricanes, so they will have to deal with material damage from them more often.
Logistics and global trade
• The obvious consequence of climate change for global logistics is the cutting of important transport arteries. For example, drought leads to the shallowing of the Panama Canal, which is fed by freshwater lakes. Because of this, some types of vessels cannot pass through the most important waterway, while others can be allowed through in smaller numbers. The heat also dries up rivers and canals, interfering with navigation on them. Alternative supplies by rail or highway can be so expensive that they make no economic sense.
• However, due to the unpredictability of weather events, the nature of the entire global logistics may undergo changes. As timely deliveries become increasingly difficult to guarantee, companies will abandon the point-to-point supply model to time and place in favor of accumulating reserves. This will make the global economy less efficient and fragmented, focusing on shorter regional deliveries, but it will help offset the negative effects of weather events so that they do not increase the cost of freight transportation.
• At the same time, global warming also provides some opportunities for logistics. It makes Arctic routes such as the Northern Sea Route more accessible. Melting ice will make it cheaper and safer to travel through once inaccessible waterways and create alternatives to the "bottlenecks" on which global trade heavily depends. The reorientation of logistics directions will change the configuration of individual states, making some beneficiaries of climate change and depriving others of the usual economic model.
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