A global economic assessment of city policies to reduce climate change impacts

AbstractThe effects of climate change are increasingly more visible on natural ecosystems. Being mountain forest ecosystems among the most vulnerable and the most affected, they appear to be, at the same time, the most suitable for the assessment of climate change effects on ecosystem services. Assuming this, we review the literature on the economic assessment of climate change impacts on European mountain forests. Initially, the trends in the provision of mountain forest ecosystem services are discussed. We, then, considered the effects on forest structure and tree physiology, these two being strictly associated with the capability of the ecosystem to provide ecosystem services. The results have been grouped into a table that displays the trend, the quality and the quantity of the information found. Subsequently, the main methods that can be employed to assess the economic value of the different ecosystem services have been described. For each method, some implementation examples have been introduced to better understand its functioning. Concluding, the main gaps still existing in literature concerning the effects of climate change on ecosystem services provided by mountain forests have been highlighted. Finally, some more considerations about the existing methods for the economic valuation of ecosystem services have been done.

Download Full-text

Bio-economic assessment of climate change impacts on managed grassland production

Agricultural Systems ◽

10.1016/j.agsy.2010.08.005 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 103 (9) ◽

pp. 666-674 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Robert Finger ◽

Patrick Lazzarotto ◽

Pierluigi Calanca

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Economic Assessment ◽

Grassland Production

Download Full-text

The economically optimal warming limit of the planet

Earth System Dynamics ◽

10.5194/esd-10-741-2019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 741-763 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Falko Ueckerdt ◽

Katja Frieler ◽

Stefan Lange ◽

Leonie Wenz ◽

Gunnar Luderer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Economic Growth ◽

Global Warming ◽

Climate Model ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Economic Assessment ◽

Inequality Aversion ◽

Economic Costs ◽

Growth Effects ◽

Wide Range

Abstract. Both climate-change damages and climate-change mitigation will incur economic costs. While the risk of severe damages increases with the level of global warming (Dell et al., 2014; IPCC, 2014b, 2018; Lenton et al., 2008), mitigating costs increase steeply with more stringent warming limits (IPCC, 2014a; Luderer et al., 2013; Rogelj et al., 2015). Here, we show that the global warming limit that minimizes this century's total economic costs of climate change lies between 1.9 and 2 ∘C, if temperature changes continue to impact national economic growth rates as observed in the past and if instantaneous growth effects are neither compensated nor amplified by additional growth effects in the following years. The result is robust across a wide range of normative assumptions on the valuation of future welfare and inequality aversion. We combine estimates of climate-change impacts on economic growth for 186 countries (applying an empirical damage function from Burke et al., 2015) with mitigation costs derived from a state-of-the-art energy–economy–climate model with a wide range of highly resolved mitigation options (Kriegler et al., 2017; Luderer et al., 2013, 2015). Our purely economic assessment, even though it omits non-market damages, provides support for the international Paris Agreement on climate change. The political goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2 degrees” is thus also an economically optimal goal given above assumptions on adaptation and damage persistence.

Download Full-text

Socio-economic Assessment of Climate Change Impacts in Agriculture

Climate Change and Agriculture in India ◽

10.4324/9781315734088-12 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 25-33

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Economic Assessment

Download Full-text

The economically optimal warming limit of the planet

10.5194/esd-2018-79 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Falko Ueckerdt ◽

Katja Frieler ◽

Stefan Lange ◽

Leonie Wenz ◽

Gunnar Luderer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Economic Growth ◽

Global Warming ◽

Climate Model ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Economic Assessment ◽

Inequality Aversion ◽

Economic Costs ◽

Wide Range ◽

Climate Change Damages

Abstract. Both climate-change damages and climate-change mitigation will incur economic costs. While the risk of severe damages increases with the level of global warming (Allen et al., 2018; Dell et al., 2014; IPCC, 2014b; Lenton et al., 2008), mitigating costs increase steeply with more stringent warming limits (Allen et al., 2018; IPCC, 2014a; Rogelj et al., 2015). Here we show that the global warming limit that minimizes this century's total economic costs of climate change lies between 1.9 and 2 °C if temperature changes continue to impact national economic growth rates as observed in the past. The result is robust across a wide range of normative assumptions on the valuation of future welfare and inequality aversion. For our study we estimated climate change impacts on economic growth for 186 countries based on recent empirical insights (Burke et al., 2015a), and mitigation costs using a state-of-the-art energy-economy-climate model with a wide range of highly-resolved mitigation options. Our purely economic assessment, even though it omits non-monetary damages, provides support for the international Paris Agreement on climate change. The political goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2 degrees” is thus also an economically optimal goal.

Download Full-text

Assessment of Total Climate Change Impacts on the Agricultural Sector of Cyprus

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11060608 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (6) ◽

pp. 608

Author(s):

Christina Papadaskalopoulou ◽

Marco Moriondo ◽

Ioannis Lemesios ◽

Anna Karali ◽

Angeliki Konsta ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Agricultural Sector ◽

Winter Season ◽

Summer Precipitation ◽

Climate Change Impacts ◽

Economic Assessment ◽

Olive Tree ◽

Special Focus ◽

Crop Models ◽

The Government

In this paper, the results of a climate change impact and vulnerability assessment conducted for the agricultural sector of Cyprus are presented. The assessment is based on the outputs of specialized climatic and crop models, while it incorporates quantified socio-economic vulnerability indicators of the Cypriot agriculture. The results are aggregated at municipal level in order to support regional and local adaptation planning. The assessment was performed for two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5, RCP8.5), as well as for extreme climatic scenarios. Following, an economic assessment was made on the expected change in revenues of the agricultural sector. The results of climatic simulations indicated that future increases in temperature will be characterized by a strong seasonal trend, with the highest increases occurring in summer. Precipitation is expected to decrease throughout the island, where the highest decreases (50%) are expected during summer (RCP8.5). This trend will affect mainly tomato, grapevine, and olive tree, whose growing cycle takes place during summer. By contrast, crops covering autumn-winter season, such as potato, barley, and wheat, are expected to partially avoid harsh summer conditions. The results of the economic assessment show that the changes in total revenues are insignificant, because, under all scenarios, a loss in one crop is compensated by a gain in another crop. However, the farmers as well as the government should take action to increase the resilience of the agricultural sector, with a special focus on those crops and areas that are expected to be adversely affected by climate change impacts.

Download Full-text