Papers by Jan Corfee-morlot
OECD Environment Working Papers, 2008
This OECD study investigates the current and future exposure of the city of Copenhagen (København... more This OECD study investigates the current and future exposure of the city of Copenhagen (København), Denmark, to sea level rise and storm surges. It is estimated that today a storm surge of amplitude 150 cm (above mean sea level) will be seen approximately once every hundred years. By raising the water level of storm surge events, anthropogenic sea level rise
Climate change is expected to have significant implications for the world economy and, more broad... more Climate change is expected to have significant implications for the world economy and, more broadly, for many areas of human activity. The purpose of this review is twofold. First, it is to summarise current estimates of the impacts of climate change and to explain how these estimates are built in order to identify the main sources of uncertainty and approximation
Climate change has become a priority issue in global environmental governance and cities are impo... more Climate change has become a priority issue in global environmental governance and cities are important players. For over three decades, the OECD has been actively supporting member and non-member countries to design environmental policies that are both economically efficient and effective at achieving their environmental objectives.1 Through peer reviews of policy implementation, the OECD helps governments to improve their collective
There are local air pollution benefits from pursuing greenhouse gases emissions mitigation polici... more There are local air pollution benefits from pursuing greenhouse gases emissions mitigation policies, which lower the net costs of emission reductions and thereby may strengthen the incentives to participate in a global climate change mitigation agreement. The main purpose of this paper is to assess the extent to which local air pollution co-benefits can lower the cost of climate change
Nature Climate Change, 2013
Flood exposure is increasing in coastal cities 1,2 owing to growing populations and assets, the c... more Flood exposure is increasing in coastal cities 1,2 owing to growing populations and assets, the changing climate 3 , and subsidence 4-6 . Here we provide a quantification of present and future flood losses in the 136 largest coastal cities. Using a new database of urban protection and different assumptions on adaptation, we account for existing and future flood defences. Average global flood losses in 2005 are estimated to be approximately US$6 billion per year, increasing to US$52 billion by 2050 with projected socio-economic change alone. With climate change and subsidence, present protection will need to be upgraded to avoid unacceptable losses of US$1 trillion or more per year. Even if adaptation investments maintain constant flood probability, subsidence and sea-level rise will increase global flood losses to US$60-63 billion per year in 2050. To maintain present flood risk, adaptation will need to reduce flood probabilities below present values. In this case, the magnitude of losses when floods do occur would increase, often by more than 50%, making it critical to also prepare for larger disasters than we experience today. The analysis identifies the cities that seem most vulnerable to these trends, that is, where the largest increase in losses can be expected.
Nature Climate Change, 2013
can be downloaded at http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/final-drafts/
OECD Economics Department Working Papers, 2009
JT03262958 Document complet disponible sur OLIS dans son format d'origine Complete document avail... more JT03262958 Document complet disponible sur OLIS dans son format d'origine Complete document available on OLIS in its original format ECO/WKP(2009)34 Unclassified English -Or. English ECO/WKP(2009)34 2 ABSTRACT/RÉSUMÉ Co-benefits of climate change mitigation policies: literature review and new results
OECD Environment Working Papers, 2008
OECD Environment Working Papers, 2009
Global Environmental Change, 2003
International negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change could take several... more International negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change could take several different approaches to advance future mitigation commitments. Options range from trying to reach consensus on specific long-term atmospheric concentration targets (e.g. 550 ppmv) to simply ignoring this contentious issue and focusing instead on what can be done in the nearer term. This paper argues for a strategy that lies between these two extremes. Internationally agreed threshold levels for certain categories of impacts or of risks posed by climate change could be translated into acceptable levels of atmospheric concentrations. This could help to establish a range of upper limits for global emissions in the medium term that could set the ambition level for negotiations on expanded GHG mitigation commitments. The paper thus considers how physical and socio-economic indicators of climate change impacts might be used to guide the setting of such targets. In an effort to explore the feasibility and implications of low levels of stabilisation, it also quantifies an intermediate global emission target for 2020 that keeps open the option to stabilise at 450 ppmv CO 2 If new efforts to reduce emissions are not forthcoming (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol or similar mitigation efforts fail), there is a significant chance that the option of 450 ppmv CO 2 is out of reach as of 2020. Regardless of the preferred approach to shaping new international commitments on climate change, progress will require improved information on the avoided impacts climate change at different levels of mitigation and careful assessment of mitigation costs. r
Environment and Urbanization, Apr 15, 2014
This paper considers the very large differences in adaptive capacity among the world’s urban cent... more This paper considers the very large differences in adaptive capacity among the world’s urban centres. It then discusses how risk levels may change for a range of climatic drivers of impacts in the near term (2030–2040) and the long term (2080–2100) with a 2°C and a 4°C warming for Dar es Salaam, Durban, London and New York City. The paper is drawn directly from Chapter 8 of Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, the IPCC Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report. It includes the complete text of this chapter’s Executive Summary. The paper highlights the limits to what adaptation can do to protect urban areas and their economies and populations without the needed global agreement and action on mitigation; this is the case even for cities with high adaptive capacities. It ends with a discussion of transformative adaptation and where learning on how to achieve this needs to come from.
Climatic Change, 2011
Despite a flurry of activity in cities on climate change and growing interest in the research com... more Despite a flurry of activity in cities on climate change and growing interest in the research community, climate policy at city-scale remains fragmented and basic tools to facilitate good decision-making are lacking. This paper draws on an interdisciplinary literature review to establish a multilevel risk governance conceptual framework. It situates the local adaptation policy challenge and action within this to explore a range of institutional questions associated with strengthening local adaptation and related functions of local government. It highlights the value of institutional design to include analytic-deliberative practice, focusing on one possible key tool to support local decision-making-that of boundary organizations to facilitate local science-policy assessment. After exploring a number of examples of boundary organisations in place today, the authors conclude that a number of institutional models are valid. A common feature across the different approaches is the establishment of a science-policy competence through active deliberation and shared analysis engaging experts and decision-makers in an iterative exchange of information. Important features that vary include the geographic scope of operation and the origin of funding, the level and form of engagement of different actors, and the relationship with "producers" of scientific information. National and subnational (regional) governments may play a key role to provide financial and technical assistance to support the creation of such boundary organizations with an explicit mandate to operate at local levels; in turn, in a number of instances boundary organizations have been shown to be able to facilitate local partnerships, J. Corfee-Morlot (B) · P.-J. Teasdale
Climatic Change, 2011
This study illustrates a methodology to assess the economic impacts of climate change at a city s... more This study illustrates a methodology to assess the economic impacts of climate change at a city scale and benefits of adaptation, taking the case of sea level rise and storm surge risk in the city of Copenhagen, capital of Denmark. The approach is a simplified catastrophe risk assessment, to calculate the direct costs of storm surges under scenarios of sea level rise, coupled to an economic input-output (IO) model. The output is a risk assessment of the direct and indirect economic impacts of storm surge under climate change, including, for example, production and job losses and reconstruction duration, and the benefits of investment in upgraded sea defences. The simplified catastrophe risk assessment entails a statistical analysis of storm surge characteristics, geographical-information analysis of population and asset exposure combined with aggregated vulnerability information. For the city of Copenhagen, it is found that in absence of adaptation, sea level rise would significantly increase flood risks. Results call for the introduction of adaptation in long-term urban planning, as one part of a comprehensive strategy to manage the
Climatic Change, 2011
Managing risks from extreme events will be a crucial component of climate change adaptation. In t... more Managing risks from extreme events will be a crucial component of climate change adaptation. In this study, we demonstrate an approach to assess future risks and quantify the benefits of adaptation options at a city-scale, with application to flood risk in Mumbai. In 2005, Mumbai experienced unprecedented flooding, causing direct economic damages estimated at almost two billion USD and 500 fatalities. Our findings suggest that by the 2080s, in a SRES A2 scenario, an 'upper bound' climate N. Ranger (B)
Climatic Change, 2011
This paper presents a first estimate of the exposure of the world's large port cities (population... more This paper presents a first estimate of the exposure of the world's large port cities (population exceeding one million inhabitants in 2005) to coastal flooding due to sea-level rise and storm surge now and in the 2070s, taking into account scenarios of socio-economic and climate changes. The analysis suggests that about 40 million people (0.6% of the global population or roughly 1 in 10 of the total port city population in the cities considered) are currently exposed to a 1 in 100 year coastal flood event. For assets, the total value exposed in 2005 across all cities considered is estimated to be US$3,000 billion; corresponding to around 5% of global GDP in 2005 (both measured in international USD) with USA, Japan and the Netherlands being
Climatic Change, 2011
... Ranger et al., (2011) (Mumbai), LCCP 2002 (London), Ng and Mendelsohn 2005 (Singapore), OECD ... more ... Ranger et al., (2011) (Mumbai), LCCP 2002 (London), Ng and Mendelsohn 2005 (Singapore), OECD 2004 (Alexandria), Rosenzweig et al. ... to increase comfort levels inside buildings as local temperatures rise, but this measure may also increase urban heat island effects and ...
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Papers by Jan Corfee-morlot