Global impacts of heat and water stress on food production and severe food insecurity.

In contrast to most integrated assessment models, with limited transparency on damage functions and recursive temporal dynamics, we use a unique large-dimensional computational global climate and trade model, GTAP-DynW, to directly project the possible intertemporal impacts of water and heat stress on global food supply and food security to 2050. The GTAP-DynW model uses GTAP production and trade data for 141 countries and regions, with varying water and heat stress baselines, and results are aggregated into 30 countries/regions and 30 commodity sectors. Blue water stress projections are drawn from WRI source material and a GTAP-Water database to incorporate dynamic changes in water resources and their availability in agricultural production and international trade, thus providing a more general measure for severe food insecurity from water and heat stress damages with global warming. Findings are presented for three representative concentration pathways: RCP4.5-SSP2, RCP8.5-SPP2, and RCP8.5-SSP3 (population growth only for SSPs) and project: (a) substantial declines, as measured by GCal, in global food production of some 6%, 10%, and 14% to 2050 and (b) the number of additional people with severe food insecurity by 2050, correspondingly, increases by 556 million, 935 million, and 1.36 billion compared to the 2020 model baseline.

Health and economic costs of early and delayed suppression and the unmitigated spread of COVID-19: The case of Australia.

We compare the health and economic costs of early and delayed mandated suppression and the unmitigated spread of 'first-wave' COVID-19 infections in Australia in 2020. Using a fit-for-purpose SIQRM-compartment model for susceptible, infected, quarantined, recovered and mortalities on active cases, that we fitted from recorded data, a value of a statistical life year (VSLY) and an age-adjusted value of statistical life (A-VSL), we find that the economic costs of unmitigated suppression are multiples more than for early mandated suppression. We also find that using an equivalent VSLY welfare loss from fatalities to estimated GDP losses, drawn from survey data and our own estimates of the impact of suppression measures on the economy, means that for early suppression not to be the preferred strategy requires that Australia would have to incur more than 12,500-30,000 deaths, depending on the fatality rate with unmitigated spread, to the economy costs of early mandated suppression. We also find that early rather than delayed mandated suppression imposes much lower economy and health costs and conclude that in high-income countries, like Australia, a 'go early, go hard' strategy to suppress COVID-19 results in the lowest estimated public health and economy costs.

A structural and stochastic optimal model for projections of LNG imports and exports in Asia-Pacific.

The Asia-Pacific region, the largest and fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in the world, has been undergoing radical changes over the past few years. These changes include considerable additional supplies from North America and Australia, and a recent LNG price slump resulting from an oil-linked pricing mechanism and demand uncertainties. This paper develops an Asia-Pacific Gas Model (APGM), based on a structural, stochastic and optimising framework, providing a valuable tool for the projection of LNG trade in the Asia-Pacific region. With existing social-economic conditions, the model projects that Asia-Pacific LNG imports are expected to increase by 49.1 percent in 2020 and 95.7 percent in 2030, compared to 2013. Total LNG trade value is estimated to increase to US$127.2 billion in 2020 and US$199.0 billion in 2030. Future LNG trade expansion is mainly driven by emerging and large importers (i.e., China and India), and serviced, most importantly, by new supplies from Australia and the USA. The model's projected results are sensitive to changes in expected oil prices, pricing mechanisms, economic growth and energy policies, as well as unexpected geopolitical-economic events.