Fix The Climate: Adapting to Climate Change’s Effects Perspective, Jotzo

Perspective Paper

Dr Frank Jotzo notes that economic analysis of adaptation is subject to similar complications and limitations that beset quantitative economic analysis of climate change mitigation. To make such analysis relevant for policy decisions, the analysis must incorporate three factors that define the economics of climate change: uncertainty; improved calibration of economic climate change impacts, and the inclusion of non-market impacts; equity and differential climate impacts at the fine scale, which will define adaptation actions in practice. There is a long road ahead in improving the tools for economic modeling of adaptation, and the mitigation-adaptation nexus. Meanwhile, the crucial question for policymakers is whether and where specific adaptation actions are beneficial, what new policies are needed to support adaptive action, and what existing policies need to be changed or scrapped.