Assessing The Costs Of Adaptation To Climate Change

This report provides a critical assessment of adaptation costs and benefits in key climate sensitive sectors, as well as at national and global levels.

This report provides a critical assessment of adaptation costs and benefits in key climate sensitive sectors, as well as at national and global levels.

This report synthesizes the results of country and sector studies on the economic costs and benefits of unilateral and regional actions on climate change in the Asian Development Bank's six South Asia developing members, namely Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The study takes into account the different scenarios and impacts projected across vulnerable sectors and estimates the total economic loss throughout the 21st century and amount of funding required for adaptation measures to avert such potential losses. It is envisioned to strengthen decision-making capacities and improve understanding of the economics of climate change for the countries in South Asia.

Costing Adaptation discusses the various salient points on the costs of adaptation, with specificreference to India. It looks at the key areas of health, coastal zones, water, agriculture, forests,and ecosystems, and evaluates the feasible measures needed to reduce the negative impacts ofclimate change. The costs of these measures are enumerated in the book and compared to currentand projected programmes. The book covers the various aspects involved in understandingadaptation to climate change in India, and estimating the costs of dealing with it and assessingwhere the expenditures have to be directed so that poor and vulnerable people are not worse offas a result of the climate change.

Project economic analysis is a tool used by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to ensure that ADB operations comply with its Charter. The guidelines in this publication are a revised version of the 1997 edition. The revision responds to the changing development context and ADB operational priorities, and aims to address the recommendations of the ADB Quality-at-Entry Assessments for more methodological work on project economic analysis. The revised guidelines provide general principles for the conduct of project economic analysis, and should be read together with handbooks, technical reports, and other reference materials published by ADB dealing with sector-specific project economic analysis in detail.

With effective climate change mitigation policies still under development, and with even the most aggressive proposals unable to halt climate change immediately, many decision makers are focusing unprecedented attention on the need for strategies to adapt to climate changes that are now unavoidable. The effects of climate change will touch every corner of the world's economies and societies; adaptation is inevitable. The remaining question is to what extent humans will anticipate and reduce undesired consequences of climate change, or postpone response until after climate change impacts have altered ecological and socioeconomic systems so significantly that opportunities for adaptation become limited. This book summarizes a National Research Council workshop at which presentations and discussion identified specific needs associated with this gap between the demand and supply of scientific information about climate change adaptation.