Title : Health-related social cost of climate change
Abstract:
Human-induced climate change is recognized as the most serious environmental problem in terms of its impact on nature and society. Its impacts on nature include biodiversity loss, habitat shift, and sea level rise, etc. while its impacts on society include land-use, economic structure and development, world trading system, and human health, etc. This paper aims at exploring the climate change impacts on human health (hereafter referred to as health). The impact on health is very broad. However, this paper aims at analyzing <Health-Related Social Cost of Climate Change>. In order to achieve the objective, this paper will be organized into five sections as follows:
The Impact of Climate Change: The current status of climate change in South Korea will be introduced with its impact by some key sectors.
The Concept of Social Cost: The concept of social cost will be explained in relation to human health, and then the analytic targets to be included in estimating the health-related social cost will be explained. The examples of the latter are the direct and indirect cost including loss of life and quality of life, direct medical cost, indirect economic loss (e.g. decrease in productivity, etc.), public financial burden, and external cost, etc.
Methodologies to Estimate Health-Related Social Cost: As the first phase of this section, the analytical steps of health-related social cost will be introduced, and then the methodologies for estimating health-related social cost will be introduced. The examples of methodology include Integration of Environmental-Economic Evaluation Technique (IEEET), Input-Output Analysis (IOA), Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), Benefit Transfer Method (BTM), and Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY), etc.
Empirical Research on Health-Related Social Cost: Some empirical researches that have estimated the health-related social cost of climate change in South Korea will be introduced. An important finding from the empirical researches is that the social costs estimated are different depending on the methodology to be used. What the differences imply will be discussed.
Concluding Remarks: Three agendas will be discussed. One is to examine the implications of industrialization which has been promoted for improving material affluence and convenient life since the 18th century, because industrialization has been the main source of environmental problems including climate change. Another one is the strategies on reducing health-related social cost of climate change. The other one is to examine the validity and reliability of the existing methodologies estimating health-related social cost of climate change.
