Case Studies

Case Study 1: Disaster Risk Reduction

Current climate variability already leads to high economic costs in Europe, including from major floods. Climate change is likely to increase these extremes, even in the short‐medium term. As these will be amongst the highest near‐term economic costs, managing these risks is an early priority for adaptation.

Case Study 2: Economic Project Appraisal

A major priority is to include adaptation into economic project appraisal of large infrastructure investments, because of the long life‐times and high exposure to future climate change. This includes existing planned investment (risk screening), but also new future investment specifically designed to respond to climate change, recognising the need to consider uncertainty for both.

Case Study 3: Policy Impact Appraisal

The mainstreaming of adaptation in policy appraisal ‐ especially where there are large flows associated with including adaptation in major EU funding areas ‐ requires additional elements to current impact assessment, including the need to address scale and time preference issues.

Case Study 4: Macro-economic effects of adaptation

The primary focus of adaptation economics to date has been bottom-up in nature, working at the sector level. However, it is increasingly clear that climate change – and adaptation to it – could have widespread macro-economic consequences with possible implications for public finances, and that investment in adaptation could affect growth and competitiveness.

Case Study 5: International Development Assistance

One of the major flows of adaptation funding – consistent with international pledges ‐ will be from Europe (EU and MS) to developing countries. The effective use of this overseas assistance to address current climate variability and future climate change involves additional challenges, set within the wider context.