"Climate damage and costs are increasing enormously. So the key message is that every tenth of a degree counts."

Last week I thought I wasn't hearing things right. The Ö1 Mittagsjournal was covering global temperature rise, for which Graz-based climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast was being interviewed. To illustrate the costs of climate damage just in the areas of heat, sea level rise, and crop failures, he calculated – based on current studies and scaled down to Austria – that we'll be facing costs of 2.5 billion euros. And that's per year, and crucially, per tenth of a degree of further temperature increase. By 2100 – that is, within the lifetime of today's generation of children – that adds up to roughly 200 billion euros. And that's per tenth of a degree. Climate damage and costs are therefore increasing enormously. So his key message is that every tenth of a degree counts. That's why climate protection – meaning reducing and stopping our greenhouse gas emissions – is such an important goal…

In his column, urban climatologist Simon Tschannett addresses the rising costs and damage caused by climate change.