Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events in Latin America: An Exposure Index

Adrian Garlati

No 4821, Research Department Publications from Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department

Abstract: Climate change is changing the frequency and intensity of Extreme Weather Events (EWEs), particularly in poor developing countries, and the international community is increasingly suggesting the design of adaptation funds to resolve this situation. Measures of vulnerability and exposure to EWEs are a critical instrument in guaranteeing a transparent, efficient and equitable allocation process in these funds. Latin American countries, which contribute little to climate change but are hard-hit by EWEs, urgently need new indicators to back up their claims for financial and technical assistance. Using DesInventar data, the paper develops an innovative Disaster Exposure Index (DEI) that encompasses many disasters' impacts. DEI calculations indicate an unexpected scenario where some regions usually considered resilient are found to be exposed. The results call for further development of regional indicators to facilitate the international, national and sub- national allocation of adaptation funds.

JEL-codes: F64 H12 H84 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=37417004 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=37417004 [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=37417004)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:wpaper:4821

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Research Department Publications from Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Felipe Herrera Library ().