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The Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change
Summary:
The World Bank is working with seven pilot countries—Bangladesh, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Samoa and Vietnam on a new study—the Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change. The study is funded by the Governments of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Switzerland and will help inform the international community’s efforts to provide new and additional resources to developing countries through a better understanding of the global costs of adapting to climate change. It will also help decision makers at the national level to better cost, prioritize, sequence and integrate robust adaptation strategies into their development plans and budgets in a context of high uncertainty, competing needs and limited financial resources.
While national governments have to protect their most vulnerable people and identify financing mechanisms to make their countries resilient to climate change, these costs of adapting to climate change are not known.
Background
The Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change study is a multi-year, multi-country study designed to help developing country decision makers more effectively design climate change adaptation strategies through an improved understanding and assessment of the risks posed by climate change, the adaptation measures that can be taken to reduce the risks and/or adverse impacts, and the costs and benefits of such measures.
By identifying the climate change adaption needs of developing countries and their costs, the study also helps inform the international community’s efforts to provide access to adequate support and new and additional resources to help the most vulnerable developing countries meet the costs of adapting to climate change.
The study is a partnership between the World Bank which is leading the technical aspects of the study, the Governments of the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and Switzerland which are funding the study, and the participating developing countries. The study focuses on seven case study countries—Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Samoa and Vietnam.
A primary focus of the study is on government-led (or planned) adaptation at the sector level, encompassing public infrastructure investments, capacity building, implementation of regulations to enable private adaptation, and safety net programs to help the vulnerable cope when adaptation measures are insufficient. Given competing needs for public sector investments in social and economic development, the study will cost, prioritize, sequence, and integrate specific adaptation strategies within the context of development plans and budgets.
The study will identify the costs and benefits of different adaptation options tailored to specific local contexts within each of the case-study countries. It will also examine the robustness of specific adaptation strategies including the nature and timing of specific adaptation measures in light of the underlying uncertainty on the extent and severity of climate related risks and impacts for each of the sectors.
The study places particular emphasis on improving understanding of the impacts, sensitivity and vulnerability of the poor and most vulnerable social groups, of what adaptation would imply for their livelihoods, and what forms of public support are needed to facilitate such changes. Following the construction of socially disaggregated vulnerability assessments in a representative range of ‘hotspots’ within each country, plausible adaptation scenarios will be developed through participatory analysis using visualization tools.
The Study will synthesize the results of the specific country studies and generalize the lessons learned from these case study countries for broader application in other developing countries.
The World Bank has designed a specific methodology consisting of these steps:
- Climate projections and assessment of exposure, climate sensitivity, and potential impact;
- Learning from the past: assessment of adaptive capacity, adaptation deficit, and maladaptation;
- Estimation of adaptation costs;
- National assessment of adaptation to climate change.
The technical study is being led by a core team of researchers in the Environment Department of the World Bank in close collaboration with the other units of the World Bank including the Social Development Department, Development Economics Research Group, Agriculture and Rural Development, regional and country offices, and the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction.
The study team has already initiated discussions with the government, national research institutions, civil society institutions and consultants in each of the case study countries and has begun the process of tailoring the methodology to the specific circumstances in each country.
The study is expected to produce a global synthesis report in mid-late 2009, in addition to individual case country reports and sector reports. Preliminary results from the study are expected to be available earlier than that.
