Economic impact assessment of the climate change on the health sector: case of Montenegro

Abstract

Considering that Montenegro does not have official data on the impacts of climate change and extremes on people's health, in this paper we prepared an assessment of the sensitivity to climate change in Montenegro for a longer period of time and their spatial distribution. The aim of this paper is to assess the future negative economic impacts of climate change on the health sector in Montenegro related to high temperatures. Due to the problem of establishing a clear correlation between the effects of climate change on health and specific diseases (for which there are no official data in Montenegro), the focus of our paper is on direct deaths under the influence of high temperature. Based on the processing and analysis of relevant statistical data, a projection of the future number of deaths caused by climate change in Montenegro was made. Then, we prepared an analysis of the value of life (VSL) concentrating on Montenegro and the world, in order to determine future statistical values, as a basis for damage assessment. Based on previously collected and processed data, we made a projection of economic damage in the health sector of Montenegro, according to 2 scenarios: Near Future Scenario (NF, until 2050) and Far Future Scenario (FF, until 2100). We estimated economic damage in the health sector of Montenegro, caused by high temperatures, at a cumulative amount of €30-60 million for the total observed period (NF, for a higher VSL), i.e. in a cumulative amount of €230-350 million for the total observed period (FF, higher VSL).