Trans-national

Global climate models predict a rise in extreme weather in the next century. To better understand future interactions among adaptation costs, socioeconomic development, and climate change in developing countries, observed losses of life from floods and droughts during 1960–2003 are modeled using three determinants: weather events, income per capita, and female education. The analysis reveals countries with high female education weathered extreme weather events better than countries with equivalent income and weather conditions.

This paper discusses the interplay between international trade, regional adaptation to climate change and financial transfers for funding adaptation. It combines insights from a theoretical model of North-to-South transfers with the findings of a calibrated dynamic multi-region multi-sector computable general equilibrium model that takes into account the impacts of climate change and the adaptation to it. Assessing the effects of adaptation funding indicates that funding of adaptation in developing regions can be Pareto-improving.

There is concern that climate change may greatly increase the costs of providing water infrastructure in rich countries, but the estimates available cannot be compared across countries. This paper develops and applies a top-down approach to estimate the costs of adapting to climate change on a consistent basis for different climate scenarios. The analysis separates (a) the costs of maintaining service standards for a baseline projection of demand, and (b) the costs of changes in water use and infrastructure as a consequence of changes in climate patterns.

We analyze the strategic interaction between mitigation and adaptation in a non-cooperative game in which regions are players and mitigation and adaptation are perfect substitutes in protecting against climate impacts. We allow for step by step decision making, with mitigation chosen first and adaptation second, and where the benefits of mitigation accrue only in the future. If marginal costs of adaptation decline with global mitigation, high income regions simultaneously invest in mitigation and adaptation. Low income regions engage in mitigation only.

Neither the costs nor the benefits of adaptation to climate change have been systematically studied so far. This paper discusses the extent to which the vast body of literature on climate change impacts can provide insights into the scope and likely cost of adaptation. The ways in which the impacts literature deals with adaptation can be grouped into four categories: no adaptation, arbitrary adaptation, observed adaptation (analogues), and modeled adaptation (optimization). All four cases are characterized by the simple assumptions made about the mechanisms of adaptation.

This paper develops a Structural Ricardian model to measure climate change impacts that explicitly models the choice of farm type in African agriculture. This two stage model first estimates the type of farm chosen and then the conditional incomes of each farm type after removing selection biases. The results indicate that increases in temperature encourage farmers to adopt mixed farming and avoid specialized farms such as croponly or livestock-only farms. Increases in precipitation encourage farmers to shift from irrigated to rainfed crops.

Valuing the environment remains a problematic and controversial process. Objections vary from concerns about the legitimacy of the procedure to the technical difficulty of the process itself. The purpose of this workshop was to explore these concerns in the context of managed realignment. The purpose of the workshop was real moreover and not dryly academic. Like it or not, a quantified case goes along way in the today’s policy climate. Thus the environment is at a great disadvantage, if soundly based numbers cannot be deployed in its defence.

Two possible adaptation options to climate change for Sub-Saharan Africa are analyzed under the SRES B2 scenario. The first scenario doubles irrigated areas in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, compared to the baseline, but keeps total crop area constant. The second scenario increases both rainfed and irrigated crop yields by 25 percent for all Sub-Saharan African countries. The two adaptation scenarios are analyzed with IMPACT, a partial equilibrium agricultural sector model combined with a water simulation model, and with GTAP-W, a general equilibrium model including water resources.

The aim of this report was to identify the most appropriate measures on the EU level to address different threats. A final selection of measures to be assessed with a view to their costs and economic, social and environmental impacts was agreed at the first interim meeting with the Commission. Measures already part of EU wide assessment projects were no part of the assessment.

This book discusses the economic costs and benefits of unilateral and regional actions on climate change adaptation in ADB’s six South Asia DMCs, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. It provides an estimate of the total economic loss throughout the 21st century to the South Asia DMCs. The study takes into account the different scenarios and impacts projected across vulnerable sectors and estimates the magnitude of funding required for adaptation measures to avert such potential losses.