Political instability linked to temperature rise!
Photo: MUNIR UZ ZAMAN / AFP
A recent article, referring to a study by US economists, published in the “Science and Life” page of this daily, says that higher temperatures may also have contributed to political instability in the poor countries defined as those with below-median per capita income, adjusted for the purchasing power of the country's currency. It has also added that small increase in temperature may have reduced the industrial and agricultural production of poor countries. It is also shown that temperature fluctuations can have large negative impacts on poor countries; on the other hand, rich countries have so far shown no measurable economic or political consequences resulting from it. The authors of the study compared annual temperature and precipitation changes from 1950 to 2003 with aggregate economic output data and estimated that a one degree Celsius rise in temperature in a given year had reduced economic growth by about 1.3 percentage points on average. It also found that a one degree Celsius warming in a poor country had reduced the growth of all exports by between two and 5.7 percentage points. If we deeply think about the political instability in our country, we can not ignore the relevance of article's view to the country's slow productivity growth. The study says that the impact of temperature on political instability may be “one mechanism through which temperature might affect productivity growth.”
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