An empirical study of the economic effects of climate change on world agriculture

Abstract

The economic effects of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration on world agriculture under two alternative crop response scenarios are empirically estimated. These effects include both changes in the prices of agricultural commodities as a result of changes in domestic agricultural yields, and changes in economic welfare following altered world patterns of consumption and production of agricultural commodities. Under both scenarios, with a few exceptions, the effects on national economic welfare are found to be quite modest. However, prices of agricultural commodities are estimated to rise considerably under the more pessimistic scenario. Increased agricultural prices reduce consumer surplus and diminish the benefits from climate change that some countries with predicted positive yield effects would otherwise receive.

Acclimation and adaptation of plants to different environmental abiotic stresses

“…There may be dependency between explaining variables (multicollinearity), and relationships between yield, precipitation and temperature may be non-linear. Moreover, the simple model we have chosen is not able to account for e¤ects caused by variability in weather and extreme weather events on yields [7]. Since we are studying a smaller change in climate (as de…ned by the RegClim scenario), a linear model is probably an acceptable approximation even if the relationships are non-linear.…”

Assessing Climate Change Impacts: Agriculture

“…Food security was the main issue in earlier 1990s (Kane et al, 1992) and the investigation was generally focused on regional or domestic agricultural impact. (see e.g.…”

“…Examples of such studies are e.g. Kane et al 1992 and Reilly et al 1994, using the SWAPSIM world food model. This model identifies supply and demand of 20 agricultural commodities for 36 world regions including international trade fluxes, but abstracts from other economic sectors and does not explicitly incorporates resource inputs.…”

“…Scientists disagree whether the rate of change of climate and the required adaptations would add significantly to the disruption that farming will experience form future changes in economic conditions, technology and resource availabilities (see e.g. Kane and Reilly, 1993;Reilly 1994 Rosenzweig, et al 1994, Kane et al 1992, Darwin et al, 1995 generally support the conclusion that low latitude yields will fall and middle and northern latitude yields will rise with a doubling of CO2 levels.…”

Proyecciones del impacto económico del cambio climático sobre la agricultura en Europa

“…Although partial equilibrium models make it possible to estimate the costs of policy measures, taking substitution processes in production and consumption as well as market clearing conditions into account, CGE models additionally allow for adjustments in all sectors, enable to consider the interactions between the intermediate input market and markets for other commodities or intermediate inputs, and complete the link between factor incomes and consumer expenditures. General equilibrium models have been used as tools to make monetary estimations of the consequences of climate change in the agricultural sector (Tsigas et al, 1997;Bosello and Zang, 2005;Kane et al, 1992;Parry et al, 1999Parry et al, , 2003Parry et al, , 2004.…”