Routledge Handbook of the Economics of Climate Change Adaptation

The book deals with the varied economic challenges that arise from the implication of adaptation policies, making a timely and important contribution to the study of climate change economics. Bringing together the world’s leading international experts in the area and including the most up to date research that has emerged over the last couple of years, the book should prove essential reading for researchers and policy makers in the field of environmental economics and climate change.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing human kind owing to the great uncertainty regarding future impacts, which affect all regions and many ecosystems. Many publications deal with economic issues relating to mitigation policies, but the economics of adaptation to climate change has received comparatively little attention. However, this area is is critical and a central pillar of any adaptation strategy or plan and is the economic dimension, which therefore merits the increase in attention it is receiving.

This book deals with the difficulties that face the economics of adaptation. Critical issues include: uncertainty; baselines; reversibility, flexibility and adaptive management; distributional impacts; discount rates and time horizons; mixing monetary and non-monetary evaluations and limits to the use of cost-benefit analysis; economy-wide impacts and cross-sectoral linkages.　All of these are addressed in the book from the perspective of economics of adaptation. Other dimensions of adaptation are also included, such as the role of low- and middle-income countries, technology and the impacts of extreme events.

This timely book will prove essential reading for international researchers and policy makers in the fields of natural resources, environmental economics and climate change.