Adaptation economics calculated

The aim is to improve the methodology for estimating the costs of adapting to climate change and to apply it to estimate these costs for India. Issues to be addressed in making such estimates are:

1/ Getting better estimates of the impacts of climate change on individuals;
2/ Allowing for autonomous adaptation to climate change;
3/ Allowing for costs of adjustment to climate change;
4/ Allowing for the impacts of general development on the costs of adaptation;
5/ How to allow for increased uncertainty about future impacts in terms of the costs it generates;
6/ How to aggregate from data at the micro level to obtain national level estimates.
The short term aim was to make an estimate of the costs for India in time for the Copenhagen Meetings in December 2009. This required an aggregation of costs from bottom up studies in the areas of health, sea level rise, agriculture, extreme events. A joint report was prepared in July 2009 and presented at Copenhagen in December 2009.
In the longer term the aim would be to develop and test the methodologies for such estimation using more accurate data and covering more countries.