Integrating gender into index-based agricultural insurance: a focus on South Africa

Index insurance is an agricultural risk management tool that can provide a safety net for smallholder farmers experiencing climate risk. While uptake and scale-out of index insurance may be slow among smallholders, we can learn from experiences that demonstrate where crop insurance can protect smallholders’ livelihoods from climate risk. Integrating gender into climate risk management is necessary to ensure that the benefits of index insurance are experienced by both men and women. A dedicated intention to integrate gender may be required. Taking South Africa as a case study, the potential for gender-sensitive index insurance scale-out among smallholders is investigated

Climate change and variability, energy and disaster management: produced risks without produced solutions: rethinking the approach

Accelerated climate change and increasing climate variability is the single largest threat to the international goals of sustainable development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and disaster risk reduction. Global discourses recognise the need for effective and sustainable responses tso produced climate risks. The risk types likely to occur are known, but only in broad terms - their scale, severity, longevity and frequency are not known. The challenge for policymakers is developing an effective framework within which sustainable responses can be formulated. To address the problems of produced risks a comprehensive approach to risk management is necessary. The mechanisms within the climate change, sustainable development and disaster risk reduction discourses are not sufficiently effective or integrated to respond to this challenge. Fundamental reform to current modes of risk reduction is needed, but this can only be achieved through a shift in the dominant perspective on formulating sustainable responses. This requires a shift to an enabling policy framework that encourages bottom-up resilient responses. Resilience is argued as a tool for policy development that can enhance adaptive capacity to current climate risks and shape energy policy to respond to mitigate future climate risks

General knowledge about climate change, factors influencing risk perception and willingness to insure

In two empirical surveys in Germany the link between the information respondents have about climate change and their risk perception of the phenomenon was analysed. We found that a better understanding of the effects of climate change might lead to a decrease of the perceived hazard. In contrast, a high self-declared knowledge about climate change might correspond with higher risk perception. Further factors affecting the risk perception of climate change are gender, experience of extreme weather events and trust in external aid. Surprisingly, information campaigns based on scientific facts are not effective for increasing risk perception and willingness to insure. Higher risk perception might induce higher interest in precautionary measures like insurance. --Climate Change,Knowledge Illusion,Insurance,Risk Perception,Information,Psychometric paradigm

Motivations for local climate adaptation in Dutch municipalities: climate change impacts and the role of local-level government

The local government level is considered to be crucial in preparing society for climate change impact. Yet little is known about why local authorities do or do not take action to adapt their community for climate change impacts. In order to implement effective adaptation policy, the motivations for local climate adaptation need to be examined. This paper explores these motivations in Dutch communities by comparing nine urban and rural cases. To be able to draw general conclusions, cases are selected on „projected risk‟ and „extreme weather event experience‟. Motivations for local climate adaptation appear much more determined by local institutional factors such as a green party aldermen or innovative network membership then projected risk or extreme weather event experience. This could be explained by the empiric data showing diffuse channels of climate change knowledge into the local government level and limited capacity to translate this knowledge into genuine adaptation strategie

Climate Change, Risk and Grain Production in China

This paper employs the production function-based method proposed by Just and Pope (1978, 1979) to explicitly analyze production risk in the context of Chinese grain farming and climate change, and test for a potential endogeneity of climate factors in Chinese grain production. Our results indicate that China might, at least in the short run, become a net beneficiary of climate change. In particular, we find that increases in annual average temperature increase mean output at the margin and at the same time lead to a reduction of production risk. Further calculations suggest that a 1 °C increase in annual average temperature would entail an economic benefit of $1.1 billion due to the increasing mean output. Furthermore, a Hausman test reveals no endogeneity of climate variables in Chinese grain production.Agriculture, grain production, climate change, production risk, China, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q1, Q54,

Health Problems Heat Up: Climate Change and the Public's Health

Examines the health effects of climate change, the needed public health response, concerns for communities at high risk, and state planning and funding for climate change assessments and strategies. Makes federal, state, and local policy recommendations

Bridging the Risk Modeling Gap: Expanding Climate-Related Risk Insurance Through Global Risk Assessment

In 2015, more than 1,000 natural disasters inflicted some $100 billion worth of economic damages around the world. These natural disasters included severe storms, flooding, extreme temperatures, droughts, and wildfires—all of which are expected to increase in frequency for years to come as a result of climate change. The annual number of such extreme weather events has been increasing, with almost three times as many occurring worldwide from 2000 to 2009 as in the 1980s.Of the total economic losses endured last year from natural disasters, insurance covered only 30 percent. The majority of uninsured losses occurred in developing countries across Africa, Asia, and South America. In Asia, only 8 percent of losses from natural disasters were insured in 2015, and in Africa, only 1 percent of such losses were insured. Without such risk management tools, governments and individuals are less able to prepare for, respond to, cope with, and recover from climate-change-fueled weather events and natural disasters. While insurance can take many forms, risk management in particular includes a lack of access to innovative insurance instruments—such as parametric risk insurance, which is specifically designed to pay out quickly in the aftermath of a natural disaster. This gives countries a rapid injection of capital that can be vital in the early window before overseas assistance is effectively ramped up and delivered.To help address this shortfall, the private sector, national governments, and international financial institutions and organizations are working to build new partnerships aimed at enabling countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change and related natural disasters to gain access to climate-related risk insurance. These efforts were given a boost in 2015, when at its annual meeting, the G7 announced a goal of expanding access to climate-related risk insurance to 400 million additional people in the most vulnerable developing nations by 2020. This would quintuple the current level of coverage throughout the developing world from 100 million people to half a billion people. In order to meet this goal of making innovative insurance and climate risk-management tools available to so many millions of new people, a critical gap in high-resolution data and cutting-edge modeling needs to be bridged

Towards an overheating risk tool for building design

PurposeThe work set out to design and develop an overheating risk tool using the UKCP09 climate projections that is compatible with building performance simulation software. The aim of the tool is to exploit the Weather Generator and give a reasonably accurate assessment of a building's performance in future climates, without adding significant time, cost or complexity to the design team's work.Methodology/approachBecause simulating every possible future climate is impracticable, the approach adopted was to use principal component analysis to give a statistically rigorous simplification of the climate projections. The perceptions and requirements of potential users were assessed through surveys, interviews and focus groups.FindingsIt is possible to convert a single dynamic simulation output into many hundreds of simulation results at hourly resolution for equally probable climates, giving a population of outcomes for the performance of a specific building in a future climate, thus helping the user choose adaptations that might reduce the risk of overheating. The tool outputs can be delivered as a probabilistic overheating curve and feed into a risk management matrix. Professionals recognized the need to quantify overheating risk, particularly for non‐domestic buildings, and were concerned about the ease of incorporating the UKCP09 projections into this process. The new tool has the potential to meet these concerns.Originality/valueThe paper is the first attempt to link UKCP09 climate projections and building performance simulation software in this way and the work offers the potential for design practitioners to use the tool to quickly assess the risk of overheating in their designs and adapt them accordingly.</jats:sec

Risk aversion, intergenerational equity and climate change.

The paper investigates a climate-economy model with an iso-elastic welfare function in which one parameter gamma measures relative risk-aversion and a distinct parameter rho measures resistance to intertemporal substitution. We show both theoretically and numerically that climate policy responds differently to variations in the two parameters. In particular, we show that higher gamma but lower rho leads to increase emissions control. We also argue that climate-economy models based on intertemporal expected utility maximization, i.e. models where gamma = rho, may misinterpret the sensitivity of the climate policy to risk-aversion.risk aversion; equity; discounting; climate change

ON ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND RISK EXPOSURE IN THE NILE BASIN OF ETHIOPIA

This study investigates the impact of climate change adaptation on farm households’ downside risk exposure (e.g., risk of crop failure) in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. The analysis relies on a moment-based specification of the stochastic production function. We estimate a simultaneous equations model with endogenous switching to account for the heterogeneity in the decision to adapt or not, and for unobservable characteristics of farmers and their farm. We find that (i) climate change adaptation reduces downside risk exposure, i.e., farm households that implemented climate change adaptation strategies get benefits in terms of a decrease in the risk of crop failure; (ii) farm households that did not adapt would benefit the most in terms of reduction in downside risk exposure from adaptation; and (iii) there are significant differences in downside risk exposure between farm households that did and those that did not adapt to climate change. The analysis also shows that the quasi-option value, that is the value of waiting to gather more information, plays a significant role in farm households’ decision to adapt to climate change. Farmers that are better informed may value less the option to wait to adapt, and so are more likely to adapt than other farmers.adaptation, climate change, endogenous switching, Ethiopia, risk exposure, stochastic production function, skewness, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, D80, Q18, Q54,