The usually assumed two categories of costs involved in climate change policy analysis, namely abatement and damage costs, hide the presence of a third category, namely adaptation costs. This dodges the determination of an appropriate level for them. Including adaptation costs explicitly in the...

The dominant assumption in economic models of climate policy remains that adaptation will be implemented in an optimal manner. There are, however, several reasons why optimal levels of adaptation may not be attainable. This paper investigates the effects of suboptimal levels of adaptation, i.e....

The paper deals with the social and economic dimensions of climate change impacts and adaptation in Italy. The ultimate aim of the paper is to provide policy makers and experts with a conceptual framework, as well as methodological and operational tools for dealing with climate change impacts...

Integrated Assessment Models (IAMS) have helped us over the past decade to understand the interactions between the environment and the economy in the context of climate change. Although it has also long been recognized that adaptation is a powerful and necessary tool to combat the adverse...

The holiday destination choice is analysed for tourists from 45 countries, representing all continents and all climates. Tourists are deterred by distance, political instability and poverty, and attracted to coasts. Tourists prefer countries with a sunny yet mild climate, shun climes that are...

We show that adaptive measures undertaken by countries in the face of climate change, apart from directly reducing the damage caused by climate change, may also indirectly mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the stable size of international agreements on emission reductions....

Nowadays, as stressed by important strategic documents like for instance the 2009 EU White Paper on Adaptation or the recent 2009 “Copenhagen Accord”, it is amply recognized that both mitigation and adaptation strategies are necessary to combat climate change. This paper enriches the rapidly...

The latest round of international negotiations in Copenhagen led to a set of commitments on emission reductions which are unlikely to stabilise global warming below or around 2°C. As a consequence, in the absence of additional ambitious policy measures, adaptation will be needed to address...

Urban areas have particular sensitivities to climate change, and therefore adaptation to a warming planet represents a challenging new issue for urban policy makers in both the developed and developing world. Further to climate mitigation strategies implemented in various cities over the past 20...

The scientific community is now developing a new set of scenarios, referred to as Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) to replace the SRES scenarios. To be used to investigate adaptation and mitigation, SSPs need to be contrasted along two axes: challenges to mitigation, and challenges to...