Many poor countries are ill-adapted to the current leave alone a changing future climate, because they lack the necessary financial means to invest in efficient and costeffective safeguarding measures. International endeavours to fund institutions, such as the Green Climate Fund, to provide...

Unique survey data from a contingent valuation study conducted in three different countries (China, Sweden, and the United States) were used to investigate the ordinary citizen’s willingness to pay (WTP) for reducing CO2 emissions. We found that a large majority of the respondents in all three...

There is a low but uncertain probability that climate change could trigger “mega-catastrophes,” severe and at least partly irreversible adverse effects across broad regions. This paper first discusses the state of current knowledge and the defining characteristics of potential climate change...

Much of the guidance about potential impacts of reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) speculates how efforts would be implemented and draws lessons from other mechanisms, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES). However, with few REDD activities underway, little...

Adapting to climate change will not only require responding to the physical effects of global warming, but will also require adapting the way we conceptualize, measure, and manage risks. Climate change is creating new risks, altering the risks we already face, and also, importantly, impacting...

On efficiency grounds, the economics community has to date tended to emphasize price-based policies to address climate change -- such as taxes or a “safety-valve” price ceiling for cap-and-trade -— while environmental advocates have sought a more clear quantitative limit on emissions. This...

In 2005, the European Union introduced the largest and most ambitious emissions trading program in the world to meet its Kyoto commitments for the containment of global climate change. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has some distinctive features that differentiate it from the more...

Insurance companies are a prominent mechanism for risk transfers. Many initiatives are looking toward private–public partnerships and new risk-management instruments to provide a cushion for climate change-related effects. For this aspiration to be fulfilled, insurers and institutions within...

Momentum may be building for federal climate change policy in the United States. Assuming this leads to mandatory greenhouse gas regulations, the door will be open for the United States to constructively re-engage other countries concerning an international climate regime. Such a regime will...

The use of cap-and-trade to regulate air pollution promises to achieve environmental goals at lower cost than traditional prescriptive approaches. Cap-and-trade has been applied to various air pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds in the United...