IEEP newsletter - spring 2010
Counting the cost of adaptation
While there are a number of EU level policies aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, the issue of climate change adaptation has not yet been adequately addressed from a regulatory standpoint. Following up on several recommendations from the Impact Assessment of the Adaptation White Paper (released in April 2009), DG Environment has commissioned a wide breadth of analysis related to adaptation.
To this end, IEEP is working with Swedish Statistics on a project for DG Environment on the ‘Identification and elaboration of a methodology to be used in the classification and costing of projects and programmes for adaptation to climate change’. The project will conclude in November 2010. The completed research and analysis will be used to provide the European Parliament with recommendations related to two key elements of adaptation cost: the quantification of cost, and how to account for expenditure.
From an accounting perspective, classifying adaptation as part of any given budget will involve integrating adaptation measures into existing budget lines. The project will determine to what extent this can be done using standard environmental accounts (currently being undertaken in some Member States) or by using budget lines currently included as part of either the EU budget or other specialised EU funds.
Determining the cost of adaptation by plotting cost curves and deriving the associated cost function is not straightforward. From an academic point of view, the project raises a number of interesting questions with respect to establishing an adaptation baseline, the possibility to extrapolate cost given the uncertainty associated with climate events, and the inability to plot any existing time series on a linear basis. The bulk of existing research points to the lack of information on adaptation cost, and the need for more bottom-up data on impacts and localised data on climate variability to help undertake such cost estimates.
Contact: Jane Desbarats