Zhao Y. auteur aut IRD Sultan Benjamin auteur aut IRD Vautard R. auteur aut IRD Braconnot P. auteur aut IRD Wang H. J. J. auteur aut IRD Ducharne A. auteur aut IRD text journalArticle eng text/pdf born digital access Global climate change will increase the frequency of hot temperatures, impairing health and productivity for millions of working people and raising labor costs. In mainland China, high-temperature subsidies (HTSs) are allocated to employees for each working day in extremely hot environments, but the potential heat-related increase in labor cost has not been evaluated so far. Here, we estimate the potential HTS cost in current and future climates under different scenarios of socioeconomic development and radiative forcing (Representative Concentration Pathway), taking uncertainties from the climate model structure and bias correction into account. On average, the total HTS in China is estimated at 38.6 billion yuan/y (US $ 6.22 billion/y) over the 1979-2005 period, which is equivalent to 0.2% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Assuming that the HTS standards (per employee per hot day) remain unchanged throughout the 21st century, the total HTS may reach 250 billion yuan/y in the 2030s and 1,000 billion yuan/y in 2100. We further show that, without specific adaptation, the increased HTS cost is mainly determined by population growth until the 2030s and climate change after the mid-21st century because of increasingly frequent hot weather. Accounting for the likely possibility that HTS standards follow the wages, the share of GDP devoted to HTS could become as high as 3% at the end of 21st century. specialized high-temperature subsidies CMIP5 GDP ANOVA climate change CHINE 021 098 113 17 4640-4645 2016 0027-8424 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010066899 10.1073/pnas.1521828113 0027-8424 [F B010066899] https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010066899 https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2016/06/010066899.pdf Accès réservé (Intranet de l'IRD) IRD - Base Horizon / Pleins textes 2016-06-29 2017-08-23 fdi:010066899 fre