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Costs of adjustment to climate change
Author(s) -
Quiggin John,
Horowitz John
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
australian journal of agricultural and resource economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.683
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-8489
pISSN - 1364-985X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8489.2003.00222.x
Subject(s) - climate change , natural resource economics , economics , welfare , natural capital , natural resource , environmental science , business , ecology , ecosystem services , market economy , ecosystem , biology
The present paper argues that the costs of climate change are primarily adjustment costs. The central result is that climate change will reduce welfare whenever it occurs more rapidly than the rate at which capital stocks (interpreted broadly to include natural resource stocks) would naturally adjust through market processes. The costs of climate change can be large even when lands are close to their climatic optimum, or evenly distributed both above and below that optimum.