Amplified trailing economic losses in global trade by climate-driven wind and solar supply-demand mismatch

Wind and solar power supply and demand mismatches, intensified by climate change, can potentially lead to power shortages that profoundly disrupt highly interconnected global supply chains. Here, we assess the domestic and international economic impacts of climate-driven power supply/demand mismatch risks on global supply chains and highlight the vulnerabilities within each country-sector supply chain. We find that, domestic economic losses, ranging from 0.1% to 18.2% of total output, are generally positively correlated with national power shortage risks. Meanwhile, international indirect losses vary significantly across supply chains, exhibiting a “trade trailing effect” that takes 1–11 months to propagate and an additional 1–9 months to recover, as well as a “butterfly effect” that amplifies international losses in high-risk small economies, sometimes by factors of ten or more. Small economies are particularly sensitive to disruptions, especially upstream impacts on agriculture-oriented economies and downstream disruptions in energy-related sectors in high-risk economies. Our findings provide valuable insights into trade resilience under climate change.