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Climatic changes --- Climat --- Economic aspects --- Changements --- Aspect économique

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Much of the current policy debate on adaptation to climate change has focussed on estimation of adaptation costs, ways to raise and to scale-up funding for adaptation, and the design of the international institutional architecture for adaptation financing. There is however little or no emphasis so far on actual delivery mechanisms to channel these resources at the sub-national level, particularly to target the poor who are also often the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. It is in this context that microfinance merits a closer look. This paper offers the first empirical assessment of the linkages between microfinance supported activities and adaptation to climate change. Specifically, the lending portfolios of the 22 leading microfinance institutions in two climate vulnerable countries – Bangladesh and Nepal - are analysed to assess the synergies and potential conflicts between microfinance and adaptation. The two countries had also been previously examined as part of an earlier OECD report on the links between macro-level Official Development Assistance and adaptation. This analysis provides a complementary “bottom-up” perspective on financing for adaptation. Insights from this analysis also have implications for OECD countries. This is because microfinance is also being increasingly tapped to reduce the vulnerability of the poor in domestic OECD contexts as well and may therefore have the potential to contribute to adaptation. The paper identifies areas of opportunity where microfinance could be harnessed to play a greater role in fostering adaptation, as well as its limitations in this context. It also explores the linkage between the top-down macro-financing for adaptation through international financial mechanisms and the bottom-up activities that can be implemented through microfinance.

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The present report seeks to inform critical questions with regard to policy mixes of investments in adaptation and mitigation, and how they might vary over time. This is facilitated here by examining adaptation within global Integrated Assessment Modelling frameworks. None of the existing Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) captures adaptation satisfactorily. Many models do not specify the damages from climate change, and those that do mostly assume implicitly that adaptation is set at an “optimal” level that minimizes the sum total of the costs of adaptation and the residual climate damages that might occur. This report develops and applies a framework for the explicit incorporation of adaptation in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). It provides a consistent framework to investigate “optimal” balances between investments in mitigating climate change, investments in adapting to climate change and accepting (future) climate change damages. By including adaptation into IAMs these already powerful tools for policy analysis are further improved and the interactions between mitigation and adaptation can be analysed in more detail. To demonstrate the approach a framework for incorporating adaptation as a policy variable was developed for two IAMs– the global Dynamic Integrated model for Climate and the Economy (DICE) and its regional counterpart, the Regional Integrated model for Climate and the Economy (RICE). These modified models – AD-DICE and AD-RICE – are calibrated and then used in a number of policy simulations to examine the distribution of adaptation costs and the interactions between adaptation and mitigation. Using the limited information available in current models, and calibrating to a specific damage level, so-called adaptation cost curves are estimated for the world. Adaptation cost curves are also estimated for different regions, although given the limited information available to calibrate the regional curves these should be considered as rough approximations of the actual adaptation potential in the different regions. These adaptation cost curves reflect how different adaptation levels will provide a wedge between gross damages (i.e. damages that would occur in the absence of adaptation) and residual damages. The analysis presented suggests that a good adaptation policy matters especially when suboptimal mitigation policies are implemented. Similarly, a good mitigation strategy is more important when optimal adaptation levels are unattainable. The rationale for this result is that both policy control options can compensate to some extent for deviations from the efficient outcome caused by non-optimality of the other control option. It should be noted, however, that in many cases there are limits to adaptation with regard to the magnitude and rate of climate change. The higher the current value of damages, the more important mitigation is as a policy option in comparison to adaptation. The comparison between adaptation and mitigation therefore depends crucially on the assumptions in the model, and especially on the discount rate and the level of future damages. The policy simulations also suggest that to combat climate change in an efficient way, short term optimal policies would consist of a mixture of substantial investments in adaptation measures, coupled with investments in mitigation, even though the latter will only decrease damages in the longer term. The costs of inaction are high, and thus it is more important to start acting on mitigation and adaptation even when there is limited information on which to base the policies, than to ignore the problems climate change already poses. Ongoing increases in expected damages over time imply that adaptation is not an option that should be considered only for the coming decades, but it will be necessary to keep investing in adaptation options, as both the challenges and benefits of adaptation increase. The results of these policy simulations confirm the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the relationship between adaptation and mitigation as described in the Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report. The framework developed in this report opens the door for further simulations that examine adaptation cost issues within other, more complex IAMs. The model additions investigated in this report can also shed light on how the next generation of IAMs will look. These tools can also be further strengthened by the incorporation of more detailed regional knowledge on the impacts of climate change and of adaptation options.

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The present report seeks to inform critical questions with regard to policy mixes of investments in adaptation and mitigation, and how they might vary over time. This is facilitated here by examining adaptation within global Integrated Assessment Modelling frameworks. None of the existing Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) captures adaptation satisfactorily. Many models do not specify the damages from climate change, and those that do mostly assume implicitly that adaptation is set at an “optimal” level that minimizes the sum total of the costs of adaptation and the residual climate damages that might occur. This report develops and applies a framework for the explicit incorporation of adaptation in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs). It provides a consistent framework to investigate “optimal” balances between investments in mitigating climate change, investments in adapting to climate change and accepting (future) climate change damages. By including adaptation into IAMs these already powerful tools for policy analysis are further improved and the interactions between mitigation and adaptation can be analysed in more detail. To demonstrate the approach a framework for incorporating adaptation as a policy variable was developed for two IAMs– the global Dynamic Integrated model for Climate and the Economy (DICE) and its regional counterpart, the Regional Integrated model for Climate and the Economy (RICE). These modified models – AD-DICE and AD-RICE – are calibrated and then used in a number of policy simulations to examine the distribution of adaptation costs and the interactions between adaptation and mitigation. Using the limited information available in current models, and calibrating to a specific damage level, so-called adaptation cost curves are estimated for the world. Adaptation cost curves are also estimated for different regions, although given the limited information available to calibrate the regional curves these should be considered as rough approximations of the actual adaptation potential in the different regions. These adaptation cost curves reflect how different adaptation levels will provide a wedge between gross damages (i.e. damages that would occur in the absence of adaptation) and residual damages. The analysis presented suggests that a good adaptation policy matters especially when suboptimal mitigation policies are implemented. Similarly, a good mitigation strategy is more important when optimal adaptation levels are unattainable. The rationale for this result is that both policy control options can compensate to some extent for deviations from the efficient outcome caused by non-optimality of the other control option. It should be noted, however, that in many cases there are limits to adaptation with regard to the magnitude and rate of climate change. The higher the current value of damages, the more important mitigation is as a policy option in comparison to adaptation. The comparison between adaptation and mitigation therefore depends crucially on the assumptions in the model, and especially on the discount rate and the level of future damages. The policy simulations also suggest that to combat climate change in an efficient way, short term optimal policies would consist of a mixture of substantial investments in adaptation measures, coupled with investments in mitigation, even though the latter will only decrease damages in the longer term. The costs of inaction are high, and thus it is more important to start acting on mitigation and adaptation even when there is limited information on which to base the policies, than to ignore the problems climate change already poses. Ongoing increases in expected damages over time imply that adaptation is not an option that should be considered only for the coming decades, but it will be necessary to keep investing in adaptation options, as both the challenges and benefits of adaptation increase. The results of these policy simulations confirm the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the relationship between adaptation and mitigation as described in the Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report. The framework developed in this report opens the door for further simulations that examine adaptation cost issues within other, more complex IAMs. The model additions investigated in this report can also shed light on how the next generation of IAMs will look. These tools can also be further strengthened by the incorporation of more detailed regional knowledge on the impacts of climate change and of adaptation options.

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This report assesses the implications of climate change on winter tourism and natural hazards management in the European Alps, with a particular focus on how these activities can adapt to climate change. The report presents the first systematic cross-country analysis of the effects of climate change on snow-reliability in the European Alps. It also examines the implications of climate change for a range of natural hazards prevalent in the Alps, with a particular focus on frameworks and financial mechanisms to manage natural hazards in three countries: France, Switzerland and Austria. Technological and behavioural adaptation measures, together with institutional structures and risk transfer mechanisms, are also reviewed.  

Climatic changes. --- Hazard mitigation. --- Tourism. --- Climatic changes --- Tourism --- Hazard mitigation --- Earth & Environmental Sciences --- Meteorology & Climatology --- Disaster mitigation --- Hazards mitigation --- Mitigation, Hazard --- Natural hazard mitigation --- Natural hazards mitigation --- Holiday industry --- Operators, Tour (Industry) --- Tour operators (Industry) --- Tourism industry --- Tourism operators (Industry) --- Tourist industry --- Tourist trade --- Tourist traffic --- Travel industry --- Visitor industry --- Changes, Climatic --- Climate change --- Climate changes --- Climate variations --- Climatic change --- Climatic fluctuations --- Climatic variations --- Global climate changes --- Global climatic changes --- Economic aspects --- Environmental aspects --- Emergency management --- Service industries --- National tourism organizations --- Travel --- Climatology --- Climate change mitigation --- Teleconnections (Climatology) --- Changes in climate --- Climate change science --- Disaster risk mitigation --- Disaster risk reduction --- Disasters --- Reduction of risks of disasters --- Risk mitigation, Disaster --- Risk reduction, Disaster --- Risk mitigation --- Austria --- France --- Germany --- Italy --- Switzerland --- Global environmental change