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This paper conducts an integrated assessment of climate change impacts and climate mitigation on agricultural commodity markets and food availability in low- and middle-income countries. The analysis uses the partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM to generate scenarios to 2080. The findings show that climate change effects on the agricultural sector will increase progressively over the century. By 2030, the impact of climate change on food consumption is moderate but already twice as large in a world with high inequalities than in a more equal world. In the long run, impacts could be much stronger, with global average calorie losses of 6 percent by 2050 and 14 percent by 2080. A mitigation policy to stabilize climate below 2?C uniformly applied to all regions as a carbon tax would also result in a 6 percent reduction in food availability by 2050 and 12 percent reduction by 2080 compared to the reference scenario. To avoid more severe impacts of climate change mitigation on development than climate change itself, revenue from carbon pricing policies will need to be redistributed appropriately. Overall, the projected effects of climate change and mitigation on agricultural markets raise important issues for food security in the long run, but remain more limited in the medium term horizon of 2030. Thus, there are opportunities for low- and middle-income countries to pursue immediate development needs and thus prepare for later periods when adaptation needs and mitigation efforts will become the greatest.

Bioenergy --- Climate change --- Climate change economics --- Climate change mitigation and green house gases --- Energy --- Energy and environment --- Environment --- Food security --- Land use change --- Macroeconomics and economic growth --- Poverty --- Science and technology development --- Science of climate change

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This paper develops a methodology for regional disaggregated estimation and mapping of the areas that are ex-ante the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and variability and applies it to Tajikistan, a mountainous country highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The authors construct the vulnerability index as a function of exposure to climate variability and natural disasters, sensitivity to the impacts of that exposure, and capacity to adapt to ongoing and future climatic changes. This index can inform decisions about adaptation responses that might benefit from an assessment of how and why vulnerability to climate change varies regionally and it may therefore prove a useful tool for policy analysts interested in how to ensure pro-poor adaptation in developing countries. Index results for Tajikistan suggest that vulnerability varies according to socio-economic and institutional development in ways that do not follow directly from exposure or elevation: geography is not destiny. The results indicate that urban areas are by far the least vulnerable, while the eastern Region of Republican Subordination mountain zone is the most vulnerable. Prime agricultural valleys are also relatively more vulnerable, implying that adaptation planners do not necessarily face a trade-off between defending vulnerable areas and defending economically important areas. These results lend support to at least some elements of current adaptation practice.

Adaptation --- Adaptation to Climate Change --- Agriculture --- Climate Change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Population Policies --- Science of Climate Change --- Vulnerability Assessment --- Central Asia --- Tajikistan

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This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and other environmental factors. Within this framework, the paper examines evidence from existing empirical literature to compose an initial picture of household-level strategies for adapting to climate change in rural settings. The authors find that although households possess numerous strategies for managing climate shocks and shifts, their adaptive capacity is insufficient for the task of maintaining-let alone improving-household welfare. They describe the role of public policy in fortifying the ability of rural households to adapt to a changing climate.

Adaptation --- Climate change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Environment --- Long-term effects --- Regional Economic Development --- Risk-coping mechanisms --- Rural Development --- Rural households --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Science of Climate Change

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This paper argues that climate change poses two distinct, if related, sets of challenges for poor rural households: challenges related to the increasing frequency and severity of weather shocks and challenges related to long-term shifts in temperature, rainfall patterns, water availability, and other environmental factors. Within this framework, the paper examines evidence from existing empirical literature to compose an initial picture of household-level strategies for adapting to climate change in rural settings. The authors find that although households possess numerous strategies for managing climate shocks and shifts, their adaptive capacity is insufficient for the task of maintaining-let alone improving-household welfare. They describe the role of public policy in fortifying the ability of rural households to adapt to a changing climate.

Adaptation --- Climate change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Environment --- Long-term effects --- Regional Economic Development --- Risk-coping mechanisms --- Rural Development --- Rural households --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Science of Climate Change

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Climate change is believed to represent a serious challenge to poverty reduction efforts around the globe. This paper conducts an up-to-date review of three main strands of the literature analyzing the poverty impacts of climate change : (i) economy-wide growth models incorporating climate change impacts to work out consistent scenarios for how climate change might affect the path of poverty over the next decades; (ii) studies focusing on the poverty impacts of climate change in the agricultural sector; and (iii) studies exploring how past climate variability impacts poverty. The analysis finds that the majority of the estimates of the poverty impacts tend to ignore the effect of aggregate economic growth on poverty and household welfare. The empirical evidence available to date suggests that climate change will slow the pace of global poverty reduction, but the expected poverty impact will be relatively modest and far from reversing the major decline in poverty that is expected to occur over the next 40 years as a result of continued economic growth. The studies focusing on the sector-specific channels of impacts of climate change suggest that the estimated impacts of climate change on agricultural yields are generally a poor predictor of the poverty impacts of climate change at the national level due to heterogeneity in the ability of households to adapt. It also appears that the impacts of climate change are generally regressive, that is, they fall more heavily on the poor than the rich.

Agricultural Yields --- Climate Change --- Climate Change Economics --- Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases --- Economic Growth --- Environment --- Household Welfare --- Poverty --- Poverty reduction --- Regional Economic Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Science of Climate Change