River floods are among some of the costliest natural disasters [1], but their socioeconomic impacts under contrasting warming levels remain little explored [2]. Here, using a multi-model framework, we estimate human losses, direct economic damage, and subsequent indirect impacts (welfare losses) under a range of temperature (1.5°C, 2°C, and 3°C [3]) and socioeconomic scenarios, assuming current vulnerability levels and in absence of future adaptation. At 1.5°C, depending on the socioeconomic scenario, it is found that human losses from flooding could rise by 70 to 83%, direct flood damage by 160 to 240%, with a relative welfare reduction between 0.23 to 0.29%. In a 2°C world, by contrast, the death toll is 50% higher, direct economic damage doubles, and welfare losses grow to 0.4%. Impacts are notably higher under 3C warming, but at the same time, variability between ensemble members also increases, leading to greater uncertainty regarding flood impacts at higher warming levels. Flood impacts are further shown to have uneven regional distribution, with greatest losses observed over the Asian continent at all specific warming levels. It is clear that increased adaptation and mitigation effortsperhaps through infrastructural investment [4]is needed to offset increasing river flood risk in the future.

Extreme sea levels (ESLs) in Europe could rise by as much as one metre or more by the end of this century due to climate change. This poses significant challenges to safeguard coastal communities. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of economically efficient protection scenarios along Europe's coastlines during the present century. We employ a probabilistic framework that integrates dynamic simulations of all ESL components and flood inundation, impact modelling and a cost-benefit analysis of raising dykes. We find that at least 83% of flood damages in Europe could be avoided by elevating dykes in an economically efficient way along 23.7%-32.1% of Europe's coastline, specifically where high value conurbations exist. The European mean benefit to cost ratio of the investments varies from 8.3 to 14.9 while at country level this ranges between 1.6 and 34.3, with higher efficiencies for a scenario with high-end greenhouse gas emissions and strong socioeconomic growth.

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Following the debate on the implications of international trade for global climate policy, this paper introduces the topic of the economic benefits from trade obtained by exporting countries in relation to the emissions generated in the production of exports. In 2008, 24% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 20% of the employment around the world were linked to international trade. China “exported” 30% of emissions and hosted 37.5% of the jobs generated by trade worldwide. The European Union and the United States of America were the destination of 25% and 18.4% of the GHG emissions embodied in trade. The imports of these two regions contributed to the creation of 45% of the employment generated by international trade. This paper proposes the idea of including trade issues in international climate negotiations, taking into account not only the environmental burden generated by developed countries when displacing emissions to developing countries through their imports, but also the economic benefits of developing countries producing the goods exported to developed countries

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp08049.pdf 1 Non-Technical SummaryThis paper analyses the employment consequences of policies aimed to support biofuels in the European Union. The promotion of biofuel use has been advocated as a means to promote the sustainable use of natural resources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions originating from transport activities on the one hand, and to reduce dependence on imported oil and thereby increase security of the European energy supply on the other hand. The employment impacts of increasing biofuels shares are calculated by taking into account a set of elements comprising the demand for capital goods required to produce biofuels, the additional demand for agricultural feedstock, higher fuel prices or reduced household budget in the case of price subsidisation, price effects ensuing from a hypothetical world oil price reduction linked to substitution in the EU market, and price impacts on agro-food commodities. This paper uses input-output methods to combine information originating from bottom-up studies and energy and agricultural simulations that were conducted in parallel and used as input to the input output (IO) model. This paper complements the existing literature in several ways. From a policy point of view, it provides a rich set of simulation results for several policy-relevant biofuels penetration scenarios under different financing schemes including a set of sensitivity runs. From a methodological point of view, we provide an extension of previous input-output approaches by combining bottom-up technology information and sectoral market simulations in our input-output framework. The input-output model is based on a 57-sector input-output table for the EU-25, whereas 7 new sectors were then added to the IO table to describe petrol and diesel fuels and their bio-based substitutes -bioethanol and biodiesel each produced by two different technologies -and a sector providing the capital goods for the production of biofuels. The input-output model incorporates different modules, including a mixed endogenous-exogenous variables IO model (which was used to accommodate constraints on agricultural production), an IO price model that computed the endogenous vector of commodity prices after an exogenous price increase, and a Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System, which calculated the final demand vector subject to prices and to the household budget. The calculations refe...