HURRY UP OR WAIT: ARE PRIVATE INVESTMENTS IN CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION DELAYED?

Adaptation gaps arise when observed adaptation to climate change is slower than perceived adaptation potential. Two common explanations for adaptation gaps are (1) private parties failing to recognize that the climate is changing and (2) the cost of adaptation is higher than commonly believed. This paper shows how these two explanations are linked and that the likelihood and duration of adaptation gaps depend on whether climate change is characterized by stationary or non-stationary dynamics. Using an investment in water-saving irrigation in California’s Central Valley as an illustrative example, we find little evidence that failing to account for climate change would explain adaptation gaps. A more likely explanation for adaptation gaps is a failure to account for the adaptation option value that arises due to the possibility of maladaptation.

EXPLORING FAIR AND AMBITIOUS MITIGATION CONTRIBUTIONS OF ASIAN ECONOMIES FOR THE GLOBAL WARMING LIMIT UNDER THE PARIS AGREEMENT

Focusing on the mitigation responsibilities and efforts, this paper provides a unified estimation of allowable emission quotas for a number of Asian economies to limit the global temperature rise well below 2°C based on a range of effort-sharing approaches. The study also explores the inconsistency between their planned emission pathways under the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the allowable emissions to achieve the 2°C target. The results show that most of the Asian developing economies would be in favor of the Equal-Per-Capita and Grandfather criteria, for which they would obtain more allowable emissions quota. However, even with the most favorable criterion, official mitigation pledges represented by NDCs are far less enough for these developing Asian economies such as China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan, as their emission pathways under NDCs significantly exceed the ideal pathways under all effort-sharing approaches. In contrast, most of the Asian developed economies have already planned reductions of annual CO2 emissions under NDCs, in line with their ideal pathways under the most favorable effort-sharing approach. However, their reductions of emissions require deep strengthening of deployment in low-carbon, zero-carbon and negative-carbon techniques, given the current growing trend of emissions for these economies.

Climate Change and Coffee Farm Relocation in Ethiopia: A Real-Options Approach

Climate change and emerging pests and diseases may negatively affect coffee yields and revenues in Ethiopian regions at low altitudes. Hence, the relocation of coffee farms to regions at higher altitudes has been suggested in order to assure sustainability and resilience for Ethiopian coffee production. In this paper, we study how sunk establishment costs, uncertain net returns and policy-induced incentives may affect the timing and value of a coffee farm relocation. This is done by developing a real-options model taking into account the relevant drivers of the farmer’s decision to relocate. We then present an empirical analysis examining a hypothetical relocation. We show that relocation is a rather attractive opportunity even though the presence of volatile net returns and relatively high establishment costs may induce its postponement. Thus, we determine the optimal amount of subsidy needed in order to foster the relocation process.

HOW THE SATELLITE CITY IS AFFECTING Co2 EMISSIONS

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals, many cities are building satellite cities to relieve the population and environment pressure of the central city. However, past experiences showed that long-term effects of such a solution were partially limited, due to limited attention on the effects of energy consumption and carbon emissions, depending on the dynamics of population and industrial development. This paper overcomes the previous limitations, applying a Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning model to the area of Xiong’an New District, an area extending from Hebei province (China) and nearby Beijing, is planned to support the development of Beijing. The proposed model was based on three different population migration, industrial and transposition scenarios to test their impacts on urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Results show that: (1) Increased population and building area will markedly increase GHG emissions from residential consumption in Hebei province, while slightly decrease GHG emissions in Beijing. (2) Green planning, including industrial structure changes, industrial transformation, will markedly decrease the GHG emissions in Hebei provinces and it can take down for the emissions increase due to the population migration. This paper proved the effectiveness of a multi-scalar, multi-dimensional, and multi-actor modeling approach for a satellite city and new town development planning, implying that a similar approach could be applied in planning and managing the development of future satellite cities.

THE RESPONSE OF WHEAT PRODUCTIVITY TO CLIMATE PATTERNS: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTANI DISTRICTS

The study examines the impact of climate variables on wheat production in 10 major wheat-producing districts of Pakistan. In doing so, we apply the Driscoll–Kraay approach to estimate the panel data from 1981 to 2019. Our empirical analysis reveals that climate variables, including temperature, rainfall and humidity, follow a common correlation across districts. We find that wheat productivity and temperature, as well as rainfall, follow an inverted U-shaped relation. The response of the wheat productivity is quadratic rather than linear towards average temperature and rainfall during the specific time of cultivation, including planting, flowering and harvesting. Besides, fertilizer use promotes and humidity impedes wheat productivity. Our findings are robust considering heterogeneity, serial correlation and spatial dependency.

OPTIMAL CLIMATE POLICY IN 3D: MITIGATION, CARBON REMOVAL, AND SOLAR GEOENGINEERING

We introduce solar geoengineering (SG) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) into an integrated assessment model to analyze the trade-offs between mitigation, SG, and CDR. We propose a novel empirical parameterization of SG that disentangles its efficacy, calibrated with climate model results, from its direct impacts. We use a simple parameterization of CDR that decouples it from the scale of baseline emissions. We find that (a) SG optimally delays mitigation and lowers the use of CDR, which is distinct from moral hazard; (b) SG is deployed prior to CDR while CDR drives the phasing out of SG in the far future; (c) SG deployment in the short term is relatively independent of discounting and of the long-term trade-off between SG and CDR over time; (d) small amounts of SG sharply reduce the cost of meeting a [Formula: see text]C target and the costs of climate change, even with a conservative calibration for the efficacy of SG.

HOW MUCH COULD ARTICLE 6 ENHANCE NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTION AMBITION TOWARD PARIS AGREEMENT GOALS THROUGH ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY?

The Paris Agreement of 2015 uses Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to achieve its goal to limit climate change to well below 2∘C. Article 6 allows countries to cooperatively implement NDCs provided they do not double-count mitigation. We estimate that economic efficiency gains from cooperative implementation of existing NDC goals using Article 6 could reduce the cost of achieving NDC goals in 2030 to all parties by [Formula: see text]$[Formula: see text], which if reinvested in additional emissions mitigation could add 9 billion tons CO2/year mitigation, beyond the 8 billion tons CO2/year currently pledged in 2030. We estimate that more than half of the 2030 gains could come from nature-based measures, but long-term potential for nature-based measures is more limited. How much or even if this economic potential can be realized is uncertain and will depend on both the rules and their implementation.