Showing papers by "Gary W. Yohe published in 2000"

Societal Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change: An Introduction

Abstract: The idea for a special issue on adaptation was first hatched in the aftermath of an exciting Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) experts meeting on adaptation convened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and was further refined on a bus to the Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, during the spring of 1997. We wanted to bring together a collection of new papers that would advance our understanding of how changes in climate and climate variability would affect people’s behavior around the world. And, we wanted to demonstrate the solid research underpinnings in this area. In particular, we hoped to explore the role of adaptation in managing climate risk and to improve our ability to make policies more responsive to changing conditions that occur over time. This issue represents the product of our efforts. Each paper has something specific to offer; but, taken together, they also coalesce around several fundamental themes that we hope will inform and improve subsequent work on adaptation and mitigation. This brief introduction is designed to highlight these themes and to lead readers to the papers where they can delve into greater detail.

Assessing the Role of Adaptation in Evaluating Vulnerability to Climate Change

Abstract: Three types of adaptation can influence significantly a system's prospective longevity in the face of climate change. The ability to cope with variation in its current environment can help a system adapt to changes over the longer term. The ability to take advantage of beneficial changes that might coincide with potentially harmful ones can play an even larger role; and focusing attention on maximizing a system's sustainable lifetime can highlight the potential for extending that time horizon and increasing the likelihood that an alternative structure might be created. A specific economic approach to adaptation demonstrates that research can serve two functions in this regard. Research can play an important role in diminishing future harm suggested by standard impact analyses by focusing attention on systems where adaptation can buy the most time. It can help societies learn how to become more robust under current conditions; and it can lead them to explore mechanisms by which they can exploit potentially beneficial change. Research can also play a critical role in assessing the need for mitigating long-term change by focusing attention on systems where potential adaptation in both the short and long runs is so limited that it is almost impossible to buy any time at all. In these areas, switching to an alternative system or investing in the protection of existing ones are the last lines of defense. Real "windows" of tolerable climate change can be defined only by working in areas where these sorts of adaptive alternatives cannot be uncovered.

Adaptation and the Guardrail Approach to Tolerable Climate Change

Abstract: Windows delineating tolerable or “acceptable” conditions associated with climate change can be defined in terms of a variety of parameters; a preliminary window offered by the Scientific Advisory Council on Global Change of the Federal Government of Germany sets limits on temperature change and the rate of temperature change. Investment in adaptation can alter the size and shape of these windows, and different emissions trajectories are associated with different limiting points on their boundaries. As a result, the value of adaptation depends upon both the underlying structure of the tolerable window and the basecase emissions trajectory. Given uncertainty about both, the best near-term policy should be cast in a sequential decision-making framework. Seen in this light, improved adaptive potential can either reduce the cost of sustaining tolerable climate change or increase the opportunity cost of holding to more restrictive boundaries.

Societal adaptation to climate variability and change

Abstract: Societal Adaptation to Climate Variability and Change: An Introduction S. Kane, G. Yohe. Cautionary Tales: Adaptation and the Global Poor R.W. Kates. Smallholder Maize Production and Climatic Risk: A Case Study from Mexico H. Eakin. Pacific Salmon Fisheries: Climate Information and Adaptation in a Conflict-Ridden Context K.A. Miller. Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Variability in Southern Africa: The Growing Role of Climate Information M. Dilley. Linking Adaptation and Mitigation in Climate Change Policy S. Kane, J.F. Shogren. Adaptation and the Guardrail Approach to Tolerable Climate Change G. Yohe, F.L. Toth. The Impacts of Climate Variability on Near-Term Policy Choices and the Value of Information R.J. Lempert, et al. Climate Variability, Climate Change and Water Resource Management in the Great Lakes R.C. de Loe, R.D. Kreutzwiser. Adaptation in Canadian Agriculture to Climatic Variability and Change C.R. Bryant, et al. Adaptation: Sensitivity to Natural Variability, Agent Assumptions and Dynamic Climate Changes S.H. Schneider, et al. An Anatomy of Adaptation to Climate Change and Variability B. Smit, et al. Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Learning: Portraits of Adaptation to Long-Term Climate Change J. Reilly, D. Schimmelpfennig.

Equity and the Kyoto Protocol: measuring the distributional effects of alternative emissions trading regimes

Abstract: This paper offers a few preliminary steps in bringing the equity implications of building global emissions trading, Annex B trading only, and no trading to the fore as an issue to be considered in the negotiations of how to implement the Kyoto Protocol. All three policy regimes worked within the Charles Rivers State Impacts Assessment Model to make the distribution of per capita gross state product across the United States worse than it would be otherwise, but not significantly. In terms of the distribution of per capita consumption across the states, though, all three of the policy alternatives worked to improve equity (even more) modestly with the largest improvement associated with the “No Trade” option. The equity implications of alternative trading regimes were far more striking in the global context. Global trading did sustain the highest mean in per capita consumption, but the “No Trade” and “Annex B” trading alternatives reduced significantly the underlying inequity in the distribution of per capita. Weighted by a logarithmic utility function, the present value of the certainty equivalent level of mean per capita consumption would fall by more than five times the efficiency gain if global trading were allowed instead of limited Annex B trading. Moreover, this measure of willingness to pay to avoid inequity would be more than eight times larger than the efficiency gain if global trading were chosen over the “No Trade” alternative. The estimates reported here are, of course, highly speculative and extremely model-specific. Different models and, more importantly, different allocations of permits within the United States and/or across the globe would produce different results. The results do not mean that global trading in emissions permits should be shelved because the equity properties are so poor. Much like the other studies that have identified issues that need to be monitored carefully in the design of mechanisms with which the signators of Kyoto Protocol might meet their commitments, though, they do emphatically add equity to the list of fundamental concerns that must be considered.