Adaptation To Global Warming - Costs

Costs

The United Nations Development Programme estimated that an additional USD 86 billion per year would be needed in 2015.

According to UNFCCC estimates in 2007, costs of adaptation to climate change would cost $49–171 Billion per annum globally by 2030, of which a significant share of the additional investment and financial flows, USD 28-67 billion would be needed in 2030 in non-Annex I Parties. This represents a doubling of current official development assistance (ODA).

This estimate has been critiqued by Parry et al. (2009), in a joint study by IIED and the Grantham Institute, which argues that the UNFCCC estimate underestimates the cost of adaptation to climate change by a factor of 2 or 3. Moreover, sectors such as tourism, mining, energy and retail were not included in the UNFCCC estimate.

The more recent World Bank Study on the 'Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change' found that the costs of adaptation would be in the range of $75–100 Billion per year between 2010 and 2050; with higher estimates under the wetter global scenario than the drier scenario, assuming that warming will be about 2 degrees by 2050.

The benefits of strong, early action on mitigation considerably outweigh the costs. The Copenhagen Accord was agreed on in order to create a commitment by developed countries to provide:

new and additional resources...approaching USD 30 billion for the period 2010- 2012 with balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation... in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, developed countries commit to a goal of mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. —Copenhagen Accord

However, a key point of contention between states at the UNFCC Copenhagen Climate Summit was who was to foot the bill and if aid is to be given, how is it to affect other levels of development aid. The concept of additionality has thus arisen and the EU has asked its member states to come up with definitions of what they understand additionality to mean, the four main definitions are:

  1. Climate finance classified as aid, but additional to (over and above) the ‘0.7%’ ODA target;
  2. Increase on previous year's Official Development Assistance (ODA) spent on climate change mitigation;
  3. Rising ODA levels that include climate change finance but where it is limited to a specified percentage; and
  4. Increase in climate finance not connected to ODA.

The main point being that there is a conflict between the OECD states budget deficit cuts, the need to help developing countries adapt to develop sustainably and the need to ensure that funding does not come from cutting aid to other important Millennium Development Goals.

Read more about this topic:  Adaptation To Global Warming

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