Climate Change Adaptation: An Overview on Challenges and Risks in Cities, Regions Affected, Costs and Benefits of Adaptation, and Finance Mechanisms

Abstract

Adaptation of climate change (CC) has been defined by many of the world’s leading institutions such as IPCC and UNFCCC in various contexts. Many studies, research, and reports on CC mitigation were reported, but less was done on adaptation. Adaptation is strategically needed to lower the impact of CC that is manifesting coupled with serious challenges and risks for cities such as high temperatures, water availability, floods and droughts, and sea-level rise damage to coastal areas. Adaptation is vital to offset CC impacts on environment challenges such as soils, biodiversity, inland water, and marine environment. By adopting effective measures and early actions for CCA, money and lives can be saved. The EU Climate Action highlighted six areas where adaptation measures should be applied and financed. Strategies for CCA are vital at all levels of government administration whether local, regional, or national to counterbalance CC. Areas with high vulnerability to CC impact and need adaptation actions, policies, and measures; are mainly in Europe, the Mediterranean, Asia-Pacific, North America, and Africa; and have been highlighted. Gaps in the assessment of the full costs of CC compared to that of CC mitigation were discussed. Many researches that have been conducted on CC policy are mainly for mitigation, but less was focusing on the assessment of cost. The EU which allocated 20 % of funding to climate, costs, and benefits of adaptation is recently focusing on the cost inclusion of adaptation in urban policies and projects and the cost of actual adaptation measures. Costs and benefits of adaptation options were reviewed by UNFCCC, mainly methodological issues for estimating the costs and benefits of adaptation options followed by the economics of adaptation in light of the review. Information and guidance for the costing of adaptation options are outlined, including many major methods and techniques for adaptation option appraisal and decision analysis in the climate change adaptation that have been recently reported such as cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), the cost–benefit analysis (CBA), and the multi-criteria analysis (MCA). It also presents a comparison between these costing and benefits and techniques. This chapter reviews and discusses five main folds: (1) why is climate change adaptation necessary; (2) the importance of climate change adaptation (CCA); (3) what are the methods of CCA; (4) the widening gap between CC impacts and required adaptation measures, including the most affected regions and case studies of CCA in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America; and (5) what is the cost of CCA including how costs of CCA are assessed and financed. It also attempts to review the CCA funding mechanisms with focus on cities and urban areas. It is clear that many actions, measures, and funds have been developed, but the gap is still widening in developing poor countries, and the robust machinery to significantly execute the current funding in productive channels is highly required if facilitating adaptation to CC impacts and minimizes risks.