EIB Working Papers 2012/05: The costs of climate-change adaptation in Europe: a review

Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on Europe that will affect its economic sectors and the distribution of economic activity. While some of those climate-change impacts can be alleviated by mitigation action, some degree of climate change cannot be avoided anymore. This makes adaptation an essential component in addressing the impacts from climate change in the future. The purpose of this review is to compare recent estimates based on their adaptation perspective. This entails a detailed review of the methodologies used, but also of the definition of adaptation adopted. This review investigates those issues with a specific regional focus on Europe.