The costs of climate-change adaptation in Europe : a review

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on Europe that will affect its economic sectors and the distribution of economic activity. While some of those climate-change impacts can be alleviated by mitigation action, some degree of climate change cannot be avoided anymore. This makes adaptation an essential component in addressing the impacts from climate change in the future. The purpose of this review is to compare recent estimates based on their adaptation perspective. This entails a detailed review of the methodologies used, but also of the definition of adaptation adopted. This review investigates those issues with a specific regional focus on Europe. At present, no study has explicitly and comprehensively estimated the overall costs of adapting Europe to climate change. Available are adaptation-cost estimates for industrialized countries in general, climate-change impact assessments for Europe, as well as several adaptation-cost or climate impact studies on the sector level. For industrialized countries, adaptation-investment needs are estimated to be USD 22-105 billion per year by 2030 (USD 16 billion without the construction sector). For Europe, climate-proofing new infrastructure is estimated to cost EUR 4.6-58 billion; and the economic impact of experiencing 2080s climate change today is valued at EUR 22-67 billion. In comparison, total investments in the EU are about two orders of magnitude larger (EUR 2.6 trillion in 2008). ...