Our Work >> Economics of Climate Change >> Adapting to Climate Change
Adapting to Climate Change
We work with governments and organizations to ask:
What are economic costs of climate change?
What is the distribution of these costs across different regions, sectors and populations?
What are the costs and benefits of actions taken to moderate damages or seize beneficial opportunities?
What are the most appropriate economic tools and methodologies to address these questions?
We need answers to the questions to unlock resources to fund climate adaptation, and to ensure these resources are allocated to the most efficient actions.
We also know there are barriers to action. Our work helps identify these barriers and how they can be overcome.
Guidance of economic analysis of adaptation projects and strategies
We prepared this technical economic guidance to help analysts and adaptation practitioners characterize the scale of the adaptation issue and select actions based on costs, benefits and uncertainties.
Economic instruments for climate adaptation
We worked with the real estate sector in British Columbia to identify policy, market and behavioral failures across the real estate development process and recommend policy reforms and economic instruments to overcome these barriers and support effective adaptation choices in real estate decisions.
Canada in a changing climate
We are contributing a chapter in Canada in a Changing Climate: National Issues Report —advancing our knowledge of climate change impacts and adaptation issues that are of national importance, or that require an integrated, cross-Canada perspective. Richard Boyd is Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter on the costs and benefits of climate impacts and adaptation.
Link to Canada in a Changing Climate homepage here.
Costing the impacts of climate change
In support of the City of Edmonton’s Climate Resilient Edmonton: Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan, we developed a model to quantify the projected social and GDP costs of climate change on Edmonton by the 2050s and 2080s under the most conservative global ‘no climate policy’ scenario (RCP8.5). We estimated a range of market and non-market losses attributable to the impacts of 19 different climate hazards on people, a range of buildings and infrastructure, and the natural environment. Expected welfare losses attributable to climate change by the 2050s (+3.5°C) and 2080s (+5.9°C) are estimated at $4.7 billion and $10.3 billion per year, respectively.