Climate Resilience and Benefit-cost Analysis

Climate Resilience and Benefit-cost Analysis PDF

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 9780309480451

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TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 199: Climate Resilience and Benefit-Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports provides information on how to apply benefit-cost analysis tools and techniques to improve decision making affecting resilience of airport infrastructure projects in response to potential long-term impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The handbook is designed to improve the process by which infrastructure investment strategies are evaluated, with an emphasis on ensuring climate-related resiliency. Procedures for presenting assumptions and results transparently and for implementing the process are also included so that industry users and decision makers can understand and communicate the outcome of the analytical process. Based on data availability, the analytical methods included in the handbook focus on two specific areas of climate change likely to affect airports (although these methods can, in principle, be used more widely): (1) the potential for extreme flooding events resulting from storm surge and sea level rise near coastal airports, and (2) the potential for rising temperatures that require weight restrictions on aircraft takeoffs (or possibly full flight delays) at airports with shorter runways in warm climates or at high elevations. The results available from application of the suggested methodologies do not necessarily make the decision of whether to invest in a mitigation project to combat climate change any easier but, rather, provide a full range of potential outcomes and possibilities for airport planners and managers to consider. Using this methodology, airport decision makers can then determine how much risk from uncertain climate change and extreme weather events they are willing or able to accommodate. Implementation of the methods presented in the handbook can be used to obtain essential quantifiable estimates of those risks, which is of particular value to airport financial professionals. The handbook is accompanied by a set of Microsoft Excel models to support the decision-making process (one for extreme water rise causing potential flooding events, and the other for high temperatures that may affect weight restrictions on aircraft takeoffs), a video tutorial, a report summary document, and an executive briefing to help decision makers understand the process

Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change -- Guidebook

Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change -- Guidebook PDF

Author: Dewberry Engineers

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780309481595

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Extreme weather events and a changing climate increasingly boost costs to transportation agencies and to the traveling public. While Departments of Transportation (DOTs) are taking into account changing climate and extreme weather when making infrastructure decisions, they typically are not using a formal set of tools or cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) to address climate resilience because they may be too time-consuming and expensive to conduct routinely. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 938: Incorporating the Costs and Benefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change--Guidebook was developed to try to fill the gaps identified by DOTs. It is intended to provide a consolidated resource for transportation practitioners to be able to more readily consider CBAs as a tool in their investment-decision making processes when considering different climate and extreme weather adaptation alternatives. This report has additional resources, including a web-only document NCHRP Web-Only Document 271: Guidelines to Incorporate the Costs andBenefits of Adaptation Measures in Preparation for Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change, a Power Point presentation that describes the research and the results, a spreadsheet tool that provides an approximate test to see if it would be cost-effective to upgrade assets to the future conditions posed by climate change, and a spreadsheet tool that uses existing conditions without climate change only to calculate the new return period for future conditions with climate change.

The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy

The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy PDF

Author: Michael A. Livermore

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-02-21

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 019993438X

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This book argues in favor of using cost-benefit analysis globally and examines the positive impact it can have in developing countries using relevant case studies. The book discusses the potential for cost-benefit analysis to provoke a global shift toward stronger and more effective economic policies.

Economic Analysis of Climate-Proofing Investment Projects

Economic Analysis of Climate-Proofing Investment Projects PDF

Author: Asian Development Bank

Publisher: Asian Development Bank

Published: 2015-09-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9292570781

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Climate change represents an increasing threat to the continued development of the people, preservation of ecosystems, and economic growth of Asia and the Pacific. Mainstreaming climate risk management in all aspects of development is thus key to an effective transition to climate-resilient development pathways. ADB's climate risk management framework aims to reduce risks resulting from climate change to investment projects in Asia and the Pacific. A key step in this framework is the technical and economic valuation of climate-proofing measures. This report describes the conduct of the cost-benefit analysis of climate proofing investment projects. An important message is that the presence of uncertainty about climate change does not invalidate the conduct of the economic analysis of investment projects, nor does it require a new type of economic analysis. However, the presence of uncertainty does require a different type of decision-making process in which technical and economic expertise combine to present decision makers with the best possible information on the economic efficiency of alternative designs of investment projects.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Environmental Health Interventions

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Environmental Health Interventions PDF

Author: Carla Guerriero

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2019-11-29

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0128129360

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Cost-benefit Analysis of Environmental Health Interventions clearly articulates the core principles and fundamental methodologies underpinning the modern economic assessment of environmental intervention on human health. Taking a practical approach, the book provides a step-by-step approach to assigning a monetary value to the health benefits and disbenefits arising from interventions, using environmental information and epidemiological evidence. It summarizes environmental risk factors and explores how to interpret and understand epidemiological data using concentration-response, exposure-response or dose-response techniques, explaining the environmental interventions available for each environmental risk factor. It evaluates in detail two of the most challenging stages of Cost-Benefit Analysis in ‘discounting’ and ‘accounting for uncertainty’. Further chapters describe how to analyze and critique results, evaluate potential alternatives to Cost-Benefit Analysis, and on how to engage with stakeholders to communicate the results of Cost-Benefit Analysis. The book includes a detailed case study how to conduct a Cost-Benefit Analysis. It is supported by an online website providing solution files and detailing the design of models using Excel. Provides a clear understanding of the core theory of cost-benefit analysis in environmental health interventions Provides practical guidance using real-world case studies to motivate and expand understanding Describes the challenging ‘discounting’ and ‘accounting for uncertainty’ problems at chapter length Supported by a practical case study, online solution files, and a practical guide to the design of CBA models using Excel

The End of Doom

The End of Doom PDF

Author: Ronald Bailey

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2015-07-21

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1466861444

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In the past five decades there have been many, many forecasts of impending environmental doom. They have universally been proven wrong. Meanwhile, those who have bet on human resourcefulness have almost always been correct. In his widely praised book Ecoscam, Ronald Bailey strongly countered environmentalist alarmism, using facts to demonstrate just how wildly overstated many claims of impending ecological doom really were. Now, twenty years later, the Reason Magazine science correspondent is back to assess the future of humanity and the global biosphere. Bailey finds, contrary to popular belief, that many present ecological trends are quite positive. Including: Falling cancer incidence rates in the United States. The likelihood of a declining world population by mid-century. The abundant return of agricultural land to nature as the world reaches peak farmland. A proven link between increases in national wealth and reductions in air and water pollution Global warming is a problem, but the cost of clean energy could soon fall below that of fossil fuels. In The End of Doom, Bailey avoids polemics and offers a balanced, fact-based and ultimately hopeful perspective on our current environmental situation. Now isn't that a breath of fresh air?

The Cost-Benefit Revolution

The Cost-Benefit Revolution PDF

Author: Cass R. Sunstein

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0262538016

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Why policies should be based on careful consideration of their costs and benefits rather than on intuition, popular opinion, interest groups, and anecdotes. Opinions on government policies vary widely. Some people feel passionately about the child obesity epidemic and support government regulation of sugary drinks. Others argue that people should be able to eat and drink whatever they like. Some people are alarmed about climate change and favor aggressive government intervention. Others don't feel the need for any sort of climate regulation. In The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Cass Sunstein argues our major disagreements really involve facts, not values. It follows that government policy should not be based on public opinion, intuitions, or pressure from interest groups, but on numbers—meaning careful consideration of costs and benefits. Will a policy save one life, or one thousand lives? Will it impose costs on consumers, and if so, will the costs be high or negligible? Will it hurt workers and small businesses, and, if so, precisely how much? As the Obama administration's “regulatory czar,” Sunstein knows his subject in both theory and practice. Drawing on behavioral economics and his well-known emphasis on “nudging,” he celebrates the cost-benefit revolution in policy making, tracing its defining moments in the Reagan, Clinton, and Obama administrations (and pondering its uncertain future in the Trump administration). He acknowledges that public officials often lack information about costs and benefits, and outlines state-of-the-art techniques for acquiring that information. Policies should make people's lives better. Quantitative cost-benefit analysis, Sunstein argues, is the best available method for making this happen—even if, in the future, new measures of human well-being, also explored in this book, may be better still.

Cost-Benefit Analyses of Climate Change

Cost-Benefit Analyses of Climate Change PDF

Author: Ferenc Toth

Publisher: Birkhäuser

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 3034889283

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The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) was founded in 1992 as a "Blue List" research institute, with the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology and the Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the federal state of Brandenburg each provid ing half ofthe funding. PIK currently has a staff of 100 (1997), including about 75 scientists and guest scientists, as well as a number of students and temporary assistants. Further expansion is taking place at the institute site in the "Albert Einstein" Science Park in Potsdam. The interdisciplinary nature of climate impact research, especially the interface between the natural scientific and socioeconomic dimensions of environmental research, is reflected at PIK in the close cooperation with partner institutes at national and international level. The flexible frame work created for the institute enables new problems and issues to be taken up as they arise. As a center of scientific innovation, PIK also coordinates international activities in the fields of climate impact research and Earth System analysis. The institute houses project offices for the IGBP international research programs, for example. Simulations of Global Change are performed on PIK's supercomputer using models and data drawn from various disciplines. The parallel compu ter (an IBM-SP2) boasts 20 gigaflops of computing power, making it one of the most powerful research computers in Germany. The Workshop on Cost-Benefit Analyses of Climate Change was jointly organized by PIK and the Wuppertal Institute for Energy, Climate, and Environment (WI).