Extended Data Fig. 5: The impacts of climate change on energy expenditures.

Time series of changes in total global energy expenditures under the SSP3 socioeconomic scenario for moderate (RCP4.5; Panel a) and high (RCP8.5; Panel b) emissions scenarios, assuming various energy price trajectories. Three of these trajectories are based on direct extrapolation of present-day price statistics at either moderate (1.4%), stagnant (0%), or high (3%) annual growth rates (Supplementary Section C.1), while five are based on price projections from integrated assessment models (Supplementary Section C.2) named in the legend. Expenditure changes in a given year are expressed as a percent of global GDP in that year. Aggregate global expenditure changes are obtained by monetizing and summing over the spatially disaggregated impacts across both electricity and other fuels. Regardless of the emissions scenario or assumed price trajectory, end-of-century changes (i.e. net savings) represent a minute fraction of the US $ 353 trillion end-of-century global GDP projected under SSP3.