Desertification

This book deals with the difficulties that face the economics of adaptation. Critical issues include: uncertainty; baselines; reversibility, flexibility and adaptive management; distributional impacts; discount rates and time horizons; mixing monetary and non-monetary evaluations and limits to the use of cost-benefit analysis; economy-wide impacts and cross-sectoral linkages. All of these are addressed in the book from the perspective of economics of adaptation.

The ISDR secretariat commissioned three papers to guide discussions at the High Level Dialogue of the first session of the Global Platform for Disaster risk Reduction. The authors of the notes were requested to introduce the topics briefly, to provide some excerpts of cases studies, with figures, as well as highlighting some pressure points that could be addressed by the ISDR system.

This report by ProAct Network and Gaia Group reviews a growing body of evidence that sound environmental management has a potentially important role to play in reducing many of the risks posed by natural hazards. Many ecosystems – if they are intact and/or well managed – act as natural, dynamic barriers that absorb the force of certain hazards, protect vulnerable communities and their assets while at the same time preserve local biodiversity and encourage ecological productivity. Natural ecosystems thus play an important protective and productive role in many instances.

This document synthesizes the information contained in the reports of 10 of the countries that participated in the National Economic, Environment and Development Study (NEEDS) for climate change project.

The present report provides a summary of the initial inputs received from the first seven case studies under NEEDS.

The main objectives of the National Economic, Environment and Development Study (NEEDS) are to support the participating countries in: (1) Selecting key sectors for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, on the basis of priorities identified in the national communications and in national development plans; (2) Assessing the financing required and received to implement mitigation and adaptation measures in the key sectors selected in 1.

The main objectives of the National Economic, Environment and Development Study (NEEDS) are to support the participating countries in: (1) Selecting key sectors for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, on the basis of priorities identified in the national communications and in national development plans; (2) Assessing the financing required and received to implement mitigation and adaptation measures in the key sectors selected in 1.

The main objectives of the National Economic, Environment and Development Study (NEEDS) are to support the participating countries in: (1) Selecting key sectors for climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, on the basis of priorities identified in the national communications and in national development plans; (2) Assessing the financing required and received to implement mitigation and adaptation measures in the key sectors selected in 1.

The paper analytically explores the optimal allocation of investments into mitigation and environmental adaptation against climate change damages at a macroeconomic level. The economic-environmental model is formulated as a social planner problem where adaptation and abatement investments are separate decision variables.

Policy brief which provides an overview of the European-wide assessment of the impacts and economic costs of sea-level rise, and an analysis of the costs and benefits of adaptation.