Paul Watkiss Associates

Recent climate change already has negative effects on human health and projected climate change is expected to contribute to substantial increases in morbidity and mortality associated with a range of health outcomes. 1 The two main policy responses are mitigation to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases to decrease the magnitude of health risks later this century, and adaptation to prepare for and minimize the negative health impacts of climate change.National planning on climate change is advancing.

Tipping points have become a key concept in research on climate change, indicating points of abrupt transition in biophysical systems as well as transformative changes in adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the potential existence of tipping points in socio-economic systems has remained underexplored, whereas they might be highly policy relevant. This paper describes characteristics of climate change induced socio-economic tipping points (SETPs) to guide future research on SETPS to inform climate policy. We review existing literature to create a tipping point typology and to derive the following SETP definition: a climate change induced, abrupt change of a socio-economic system, into a new, fundamentally different state. Through stakeholder consultation, we identify 22 candidate SETP examples with policy relevance for Europe. Three of these are described in higher detail to identify their tipping point characteristics (stable states, mechanisms and abrupt change): the collapse of winter sports tourism, farmland abandonment and sea-level rise-induced migration. We find that stakeholder perceptions play an important role in describing SETPs. The role of climate drivers is difficult to isolate from other drivers because of complex interplays with socio-economic factors. In some cases, the rate of change rather than the magnitude of change causes a tipping point. The clearest SETPs are found on small system scales. On a national to continental scale, SETPs are less obvious because they are difficult to separate from their associated economic substitution effects and policy response. Some proposed adaptation measures are so transformative that their implementations can be considered an SETP in terms of ‘response to climate change’. Future research can focus on identification and impact analysis of tipping points using stylized models, on the exceedance of stakeholder-defined critical thresholds in the RCP/SSP space and on the macro-economic impacts of new system states.

Climate change has the potential to lead to major impacts and economic costs in Europe. This chapter reports on a recent regional assessment—the ClimateCost project—which has combined sectoral assessments and wider economic analysis to derive such estimates.

Abstract The aggregate economic measures of damage from climate change have been a focus of attention for several decades, but have become the subject of particular interest and debate in recent years. They are usually reported in a number of different ways: as equivalent costs of global or national economic product in a future period or for a future temperature; as a present value where all future costs are discounted back to a point in time; or as the incremental damage that can be attributed to a marginal increase in emissions, known as the social cost of carbon. This article outlines these aggregate economic measures and assesses the key assumptions and inputs in the estimates, and how these influence the aggregated results. Finally, it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the estimates and their potential role and applicability for policy. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 356–372 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.111This article is categorized under: Climate Economics > Aggregation Techniques for Impacts and Mitigation Costs

Many of the decisions relating to future urban development require information on climate change risks to cities This review of the academic and “grey” literature provides an overview assessment of the state of the art in the quantification and valuation of climate risks at the city-scale. We find that whilst a small number of cities, mostly in OECD countries, have derived quantitative estimates of the costs of climate change risks under alternative scenarios, this form of analysis is in its infancy. The climate risks most frequently addressed in existing studies are associated with sea-level rise, health and water resources. Other sectors such as energy, transport, and built infrastructure remain less studied. The review has also undertaken a case study to examine the progress in two cities—London and New York—which are relatively advanced in the assessment of climate risks and adaptation. The case studies show that these cities have benefited from stakeholder engagement at an early stage in their risk assessments. They have also benefited from the development of specific institutional responsibilities for co-ordinating such research from the outset. This involvement has been critical in creating momentum and obtaining resources for subsequent in-depth analysis of sectoral impacts and adaptation needs..While low cost climate down-scaling applications would be useful in future research, the greatest priority is to develop responses that can work within the high future uncertainty of future climate change, to build resilience and maintain flexibility. This can best be used within the context of established risk management practices.