Climate change is making the lives of many more difficult. Tens of millions of people are already displaced by weather events each year, and studies show that climate breakdown drives mental and physical health crises, increased conflict, drought, and food insecurity, among many other challenges.

So why do leading climate models primarily measure impacts on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rather than human wellbeing?

Inge Schrijver joins Alasdair on the podcast to discuss her new research into this question, and to explain how climate models work, how they are used, and what they are missing.

Inge Schrijver is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University. Her study, “Inclusion of wellbeing impacts of climate change: a review of literature and integrated environment–society–economy models,” was co-authored with René Kleijn and is available to read here.

Further reading:

• Climate action saves lives. So why do climate models ignore wellbeing? Inge Schrijver, Paul Behrens and Rutger Hoekstra, 2025, The Conversation
• Beyond GDP: a review and conceptual framework for measuring sustainable and inclusive wellbeing, Annegeke Jansen, Ranran Wang, Paul Behrens, Rutger Hoekstra, The Lancet
• Degrowth in the IPCC AR6 WGIII, 2022, Timothée Parrique
• Sufficiency means degrowth, 2022, Timothée Parrique
• The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change, Globalizations, 2020, Taylor & Francis
• WISE Horizons
• The Land and Climate podcast with Wim Carton: is climate modelling undermined by economics and ideology?, 2022

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