Waiting for Godot? The Case for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Small Island States

Serhan Cevik

No 2022/179, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Global warming is the most significant threat to ecosystems and people’s health and living standards, especially in small island states in the Caribbean and elsewhere. This paper contributes to the debate by analyzing different options to scale up climate change mitigation and adaptation. In particular, the empirical analysis indicates that increasing energy efficiency and reducing the use of fossil fuel in electricity generation could lead to a significant reduction in carbon emissions, while investing in physical and financial resilience would yield long-run benefits. From a risk-reward perspective, the advantages of reducing the risks associated with climate change and the health benefits from higher environmental quality clearly outweigh the potential cost of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the short run. The additional revenue generated by environmental taxes could be used to compensate the most vulnerable households, building a multilayered safety net, and strengthening structural resilience.

Keywords: Climate change; decarbanization; energy efficiency; mitigation; adaptation; carbon tax; green financing; climate change mitigation; risk-reward perspective; Island state; adaptation strategy; climate change adaptation; Greenhouse gas emissions; Natural disasters; Caribbean; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2022-09-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene and nep-env
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=523277 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Waiting for Godot? The case for climate change adaptation and mitigation in small island states (2022)
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:imf:imfwpa:2022/179

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().