Climate change could cost Germany up to €900 billion ($957 billion) by 2050, a study commissioned by the government showed on Monday.
The Environment Ministry, alongside the Economy and Climate Protection Ministry, put out a paper which looked at several scenarios from 2022 to 2050 based on different levels of global warming.
The cheapest model suggested costs of €280 billion over the time span.
For the year 2050, a decrease of gross domestic product of 0.6 to 1.8% can be expected due to climate change.
For the period 2000 to 2021, the damage from global warming is put at a minimum of €145 billion.
"Climate change is today already having serious economic consequences, and these consequences could increase massively," Stefan Wenzel, secretary of state in the ministry, said.
The scenarios are not exact predictions because aspects such as the reduction in the quality of life are hard to quantify economically.
Speaking on Monday, Economy and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck said that while reference was constantly made to climate change, the priority was to protect people from natural disaster.
Alongside direct damage, such as falling crop yields and rising prices, the study found indirect costs to the health system, for example, through absenteeism and disruption of supply chains.
The authors said the values found should be seen as lower limits, as not all the consequences could be measured and represented in a model.
"The costs of climate change may turn out to be much higher than determined by the scenarios in the model," they wrote.
Adaptation measures, such as planting vegetation in cities, could reduce the purely economic costs, measured as loss in production, by between 60% and 100%, the study found.
Jörg Asmussen, head of the GDV association of German insurers, said: "The economic consequences caused by climate change and extreme weather events can only be reduced, in our view, by construction adapted to the climate."
The German government is planning to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 65% by 2020, compared with the 1990 baseline, under legislation already passed. Carbon neutrality – all greenhouse gas emissions compensated for by absorption – is to be attained by 2045.
From 2050, Germany aims to absorb more in greenhouse gases than it emits, with moors, for example, playing a role as CO2 sinks.
