Monetary valuation of climate-change impacts, and the cost-benefit analysis of climate-change policy into which it feeds, has long been controversial. Writers in ecological economics have done much to illuminate its difficulties. For the purposes of this paper, the key difficulties of the...

This is an evaluation of estimates of the costs of adaptation made by the United NationsFramework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2007 and by some preceding studies(UNFCCC, 2007; Stern, 2006; World Bank, 2006; Oxfam, 2007; UNDP, 2007). The costs havebeen used as the basis for discussion regarding the...

Several recent studies have reported the costs of adapting to climate change, including for developing countries. They have similar-sized estimates and have been influential in United Nations (UN) negotiations aimed at tackling climate change. Our reassessment of one of these studies, which...