The Inequities of National Adaptation to Climate Change

Heidi K. Edmonds, C. A. Knox Lovell () and Julie E. Lovell
Additional contact information
Heidi K. Edmonds: Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
C. A. Knox Lovell: Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
Julie E. Lovell: Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA), School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: C. A. Knox Lovell

Resources, 2022, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-26

Abstract: With global efforts to mitigate climate change lagging behind what is necessary to achieve Paris Agreement global warming targets, global mean temperatures are increasing, and weather extremes are becoming more frequent and more severe. When mitigation falters, adaptation to current and anticipated future climate conditions becomes increasingly urgent. This study provides a novel collection of adaptive capacity and adaptation readiness indicators, which it aggregates into a composite adaptation index to assess the relative adaptation performance of nations. Adaptation performance is assessed using two complementary techniques, a distance to frontier analysis and a dominance analysis. Developed countries perform relatively well and developing countries perform relatively poorly in both exercises. Adaptation performance is found to be closely and positively related to both national income per capita and greenhouse gas emissions per capita, highlighting the inequities of global adaptation performance. These adaptation inequities are consistent with the IPCC assessment that nations most affected by climate change are those that are least able to adapt and contribute least to the problem, creating a need for assistance from developed countries.

Keywords: climate change; adaptive capacity indicators; adaptation readiness indicators; composite adaptation index; adaptation inequity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/12/1/1/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/12/1/1/ (text/html)

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:gam:jresou:v:12:y:2022:i:1:p:1-:d:1017664

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().