Climate change and increasing heat impacts on labor productivity.

Summary Extreme heat induced by climate change will cause profound adverse consequences for work, human performance, daily life, and the economy in large parts of the world. The increasing temperatures are the most predictable effects of climate change, and all models of future trends show significant increase this century. The heat problems will become even worse in the next one or two centuries, depending on the global climate policies established this year. The global areas worst affected by extreme heat will be tropical countries, including most of the Member States of the Climate Vulnerable Forum. Policymakers need to be made aware of the detrimental effects of labor productivity loss on local economic output and the negative impacts on GDP -- an important factor in considering the cost of climate change and the need for mitigation. The extreme heat effects on labor productivity are substantially worse for models representing a global temperature increase of 2°C than an increase of 1.5°C. The difference may be similar to the losses calculated for the Climate Vulnerability Monitor 2012.