Adapt and Be Adept: Market Responses to Climate Change

Anderson notes in his introduction that most current climate policies such as the Paris Agreement require hard-to-enforce collective action and focus on reducing or mitigating greenhouse gases rather than adapting to their negative effects. Adaptive actions can typically deliver much more, faster and more cheaply than any realistic climate policy. The authors tackle a range of issues: the hidden costs of renewable energy sources, the political obstacles surrounding climate change policy, insurance and financial instruments for pricing risk of exposure to the effects of climate change, and more.

Reliance on emerging renewable energies and a carbon tax are not enough to prevent the effects of global warming, they argue. We must encourage more private action and market incentives to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.