What do we know about the economics of adaptation? A workshop on practical and methodological challenges

The recent fifth Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change has once more shown that our climate is changing. Today considerable challenges continue to exist in better understanding climate change, the associated impacts and the identification of potential adaptation options. Adapting involves making decisions to reduce potential damages and taking advantage of new opportunities. Through adoption of adaptation measures, the adaptive capacity of a system may increase and the sensitivity reduces, thereby reducing the vulnerability of society. There is an increasing need for more detailed economic analysis, including simple methods and tools for assessment of options, especially since, as Downing (2012) recognizes, adaptation is moving from theory to practice and practitioners try to deal with how to begin adapting. This leads to an increasing need and interest in the appraisal of options. Only few adaptation methodologies take an explicit economic approach, and these only limited consider features such as appraisal of costs and benefits that are difficult to identify and monetize, inclusion of learning about climate change impacts, or how to deal with risk and uncertainty. There is a need to advance and link the knowledge and evidence base on the economics of adaptation with the practical application of adaptation planning and decision-making. The AdaptEcon workshop will bring together practitioners, national and international experts in the field of adaptation economics for a workshop in Oslo. They will discuss how state-of-the-art research advancements can contribute to how society can and should adapt to the challenges of climate change, how climate services can provide a two-way exchange between practitioners and researchers, and identify further practical and research needs on the appraisal of options and make concrete plans on how these needs can be met.