Dear Colleagues,

While there is a growing recognition of the need to address inevitable climate risks, the imperative to justify any such actions across a range of economic and other decision criteria is acute, and is likely to remain so in a post-COVID world of gradual economic recovery. While there is an awareness of the need to supplement current methods and empirical scope, the existing literature is primarily confined to analysis of contexts where market data are abundant. This Special Issue will consider how economic criteria can best be implemented in order to retain robustness in economic analysis, while allowing for the fact that there are often limited resources available for such an analysis. This challenge will need to be addressed across a range of contexts, including in the following: the management of extreme weather events modified by climate change, which have high impact costs in the short term; appraisal of projects where the costs of climate risks are borne over long time periods; appraisal of flows of large-scale investment funds where the case for climate resilience needs to be made; macro-economic and strategic-level decisions at a national scale; and the appraisal of overseas development assistance aimed at reducing the damage costs of climate risks in less developed countries. Papers may address, but need not to be limited to, the following topics:

• Efficiency: equity trade-offs and complementarities
• The burdens of costs and benefits across public and private sectors
• The economics of “soft” adaptation options such as behavioural change, ecosystem-based initiatives, and regulatory change
• Treatment of uncertainty and the potential for “light touch” methods to support adaptation decision-making
• Identification of low-regret adaptation options and incorporation of ancillary benefits into economic analysis.

Dr. Alistair Hunt
Guest Editor

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• economic appraisal
• climate change adaptation
• efficiency
• equity
• uncertainty