Europe to suffer as the world warms up

Chilly northern Europe could reap big benefits from global warming, while the Mediterranean faces crippling shortages of both water and tourists by the middle of the century, according to the first comprehensive study of its effects on the continent.

Fewer in the north would die of cold, crops there would boom and the North Sea coast could become the new Riviera, an analysis to be approved by the European Commission next week shows. But the annual migration of rich northern Europeans to the south could stop – with dramatic consequences for the economies of Spain, Greece and Italy.
While fewer people will perish of cold in the north, tens of thousands more will die of heat in the south. As many as 87,000 extra deaths a year would occur annually by 2071, assuming a three degree centigrade temperature rise. If efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions limit the rise to 2.2 degrees, additional mortalities would be 36,000 a year.

These numbers are dwarfed by predicted deaths and economic chaos in the developing world.

Financial Times