Agricultural Adaptation to Climate Change in Rich and Poor Countries: Current Modeling Practice and Potential for Empirical Contributions
By Thomas W. Hertel, David B. Lobell. GTAP Working Paper, 2012
160 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In this paper we discuss the scope of the adaptation challenge facing world agriculture in the coming decades. Due to rising temperatures throughout the tropics, pressures for adaptation will be greatest in some of the poorest parts of the world where the adaptive capacity is least abundant. We discuss both autonomous (market driven) and planned adaptations, distinguishing: (a) those that can be undertaken with existing technology, (b) those that involve development of new technologies, and (c) those that involve institutional/market and policy reforms. The paper then proceeds to identify which of these adaptations are currently modeled in integrated assessment studies and related analyses at global scale. This, in turn, gives rise to recommendations about how these models should be modified in order to more effectively capture climate change adaptation in the farm and food sector. In general, we find that existing integrated assessment models are better suited to analyzing adaptation by relative well-endowed producers in the developed countries. They likely understate climate impacts on agriculture in developing countries, while overstating the potential adaptations. This is troubling, since the need for adaptation will be greatest amongst the lower income producers in the poorest tropical countries. This is also where policies and public investments are likely to have the highest payoff. We conclude with a discussion of opportunities for improving the empirical foundations of integrated assessment modeling with an emphasis on the poorest countries. Keywords: Climate change, adaptation, integrated assessment models, investment, new technologies, developing countries. JEL codes: Q54, Q55, Q56, Q58, Q15, Q16, Q17
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Soil Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b4d20a19b544eb7e547ffd8bca5ed2e605b6d983
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Citations in the corpus
- Crop modelling for integrated assessment of risk to food production from climate change (2015, unknown): “labour invested in weeding) (Hertel and Lobell, 2013).”
- The role of international trade in managing food security risks from climate change (2015, background): “As these changes will be gradual, there is greater scope for adaptation, provided that the changes are anticipated and appropriate long term investments can be made (Hertel and Lobell 2014).”