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This paper examines how rising temperatures impact the agricultural production value of Thai farmers, compares potential adaptation strategies like agricultural diversification, and analyzes future projections based on IPCC AR6 scenarios. We analyze nationally representative socioeconomic survey data from farm households alongside ERA5 weather data, utilizing econometric regression analysis. Our analysis reveals that higher temperatures lead to a reduction in agricultural output value, with the situation expected to worsen as global warming progresses. Furthermore, we find that households with diversified production practices, such as a variety of agricultural activities or multicropping, exhibit a greater capacity to adapt to rising temperatures. These findings substantiate the importance of the country’s policies promoting integrated farming and diversified crop-mix strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of agriculture-led versus non-agriculture-led development strategies under climate-induced economic uncertainty. Utilizing Malawi as a case study, we introduce the application of Stochastic Dominance (SD) analysis, a tool from decision analysis theory, and compare the two strategies in the context of weather/climate-associated economic uncertainty. Our findings suggest that an agriculture-led development strategy consistently surpasses its non-agriculture-led antagonist in poverty and undernourishment outcomes across almost all possible weather/climate scenarios. This underscores that, despite increasing exposure of the entire economy to weather/climate uncertainty, agriculture-led development remains the optimal strategy for Malawi to reduce poverty and undernourishment. The study also endorses the broader use of SD analysis in policy planning studies, promoting its potential to integrate risk and uncertainty into policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conduct a contingent valuation survey in Spain and the UK to elicit information about the Willingness to Pay (WTP) for heat wave watch and response programs. We find that people are willing to pay for such programs, and that the WTP (€ 50 for each of 10 years; 2019 PPP euro) is virtually the same across the two countries and across respondents that received two alternate presentations of the mortality risks with and without the programs. The responses to the WTP questions are internally consistent. Persons who re-assessed their own risks as “very high” after reading the questionnaire’s information about the health effects of excessive heat are prepared to pay more for these programs. These persons are in poor health and less highly educated, and thus an important priority for outreach and education efforts by heat wave watch and response programs. That people value saving lives during heat waves as important is confirmed by the results of person tradeoffs, which show that avoiding a fatality during heat waves is comparable to avoiding a cancer fatality, is slightly more valuable than an avoiding a cardiovascular fatality, and definitely more valuable than an avoided road traffic fatality. The Value per Statistical Life implied by the WTP for the programs is € 1.1 million to € 4.7 million (2019 PPP euro), depending on the size of the mortality risk reduction valued by the respondent, for an average of € 1.6 million. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmers’ perceptions about climate change may help to explain the farming systems that they adopt and the effectiveness of their production practices in mitigating the negative impacts of the agricultural sector on the environment. This study analyzed the perceptions of 273 farmers participating in the Sustainable Rural Project—a large-scale climate change mitigation project in Brazil—that promoted the adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies in the Brazilian Amazon and Atlantic Forest biomes. Using a principal component analysis, we developed a Climate Change Perception Indicator (CCPI): an index to categorize farmers according to their perceptions about the impacts of climate change on agriculture. Our results indicate that farmers’ motivations to adopt sustainable agricultural practices were strongly driven by economic factors. We also found evidence to suggest that political agendas can influence farmers’ environmental perceptions. Moreover, older farmers with a higher level of education and more experience tended to demonstrate a stronger concern about climate change. However, the level of adoption of sustainable agricultural technologies was generally low, and a lack of technical knowledge and financial support may hinder widespread adoption of these practices. Thus, an approach that includes consideration of farmers’ perceptions about the impacts of climate change on their business may improve outcomes from the Sustainable Rural Project and other projects that aim to enhance the adoption of sustainable agriculture technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research shows that, in the USA, the elasticity of carbon emissions with respect to GDP is greater when GDP declines than when GDP increases. Using monthly US data, we examine each individual recession since 1973. We find asymmetric changes in carbon emissions in the 1973–1975, 1980, 1990–1991, and 2020 recessions but not in the 1981–1982, 2001, or 2008–2009 recessions. The former four recessions are associated with negative oil market shocks. In the first three, there was a supply shock and in 2020, a demand shock. Changes in oil consumption that are not explained by changes in GDP explain these asymmetries. Furthermore, the asymmetries are due to emissions in the transport and industrial sectors, which are the main consumers of oil. We conclude that emissions behaved similarly in 2020 to the way they did in recessions associated with oil supply shocks, but, actually, this pattern is not inherent to the business cycle itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does land security matter in climate change adaptation strategies choice? To provide answers to this, the paper used a survey data collected from a random sample of 341 agricultural households in 2020 in Benin. Descriptive statistics and multivariate probit model were used to analyze the data. The main adaptations strategies identified are adjustment in sowing time, tree planting, crop and livestock integration, use of irrigation, use of improved variety, and endogenous beliefs, while family land, own land and rented land are the types of land tenure arrangements. Results from a multivariate probit model show that the use of family land increases the likelihood of planting tree, crop and livestock integration, use of improved variety, and endogenous beliefs. Farmers using own land are more likely to adopt tree planting and endogenous beliefs as adaptation strategies, while they are less likely to adopt irrigation. The use of rented land increases the likelihood of adjusting the sowing time, crop and livestock integration, use of irrigation, use of improved variety, and use of endogenous beliefs. These findings suggest that the choice of adaptation strategies to cope with climate change depends on the type of land tenure arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human health in Odisha is directly vulnerable to climate change in the form of mortality as a result of climate-induced natural disasters (CINDs) and heatwaves. More frequent and intensified CIND has become an inevitable part of the state and its impact on human health has been detrimental. The magnitude of the impact of climate change on human health depends on the vulnerability and adaptation approaches of the state. The objectives of the paper are to study the changing pattern of climatic variability over 20 years in the state and to analyze the direct impact of climate change on human health in Odisha. Linear trend analysis is performed for annual average, pre-monsoon, monsoon, and post-monsoon rainfall as well as annual maximum and minimum temperature and for the heatwave period to show the changing pattern of climate in the state over 20 years. Regression analysis is performed between the indexed value of vulnerability and adaptation coefficients considered in the study as independent variables and mortality due to CIND as the dependent variable to analyze the impact of climate change on human health in the state. Also, correlation analysis is conducted to show the association between heatwave mortality and the maximum temperature of the heatwave period. The rainfall trend of the state for 20 years from 2000 to 2020 is found to increase in pre-monsoon and post-monsoon periods, while the annual average rainfall of the state for 20 years is slightly increasing and the monsoon period rainfall has remained consistent throughout the years. The annual maximum and minimum temperature and the heatwave period are found to be increasing. The regression analysis has shown a significant positive relationship between vulnerability coefficients and mortality as a direct impact of CIND on human health, whereas adaptation coefficients exhibit negative relation with it. Also, there is a moderate but significant association between the maximum temperature of the heatwave period with heatwave mortality. Odisha has been vulnerable to climate change during 2000–2020 as indicated by the high vulnerability score compared to the adaptation score for each year. However, years with better adaptive approaches, having high adaptive index scores, experienced less human mortality even with high vulnerability scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic region is one of the most exposed to the global climate change. Russia accounts for more than a half of the whole Arctic territory and population and allocates most of the economic activity of the region. From the Soviet time till now, the Arctic region also accounts for a substantial share of Russia’s wealth. The article analyzes often ambiguous knowledge on climate change implications for the long-term economic development of the Russian Arctic. Based on the review of the key policy documents issued in Russia and ongoing and planned development programs, the study aspires to contribute more clarity on Russia’s standing in the Arctic region. We aim to analyze the convergence of Russian climate and Arctic policies boosting the synergies between each other. The paper discovers, among other issues, the climate change adaptation priorities in policy areas aimed at minimizing net costs of climate change. While policies rhetorically aim at contributing to resilient and sustainable growth in the Russian North, they remain under-developed in accounting for multiple climate-related risks. Our analysis suggests that a comprehensive framework of Arctic policy measures should be centered around climate change as a core factor underlying the future of the region and should encompass two main policy dimensions: (a) strengthening the knowledge base on climate change, the adjunct risks, and emerging opportunities in the region and (b) developing the system for climate change risk management and resilience building ensuring that regional diversity and climatic and socioeconomic features of various locations are taken into serious account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a fundamental risk to the stability of the financial system. The linkage between residential mortgage lending and local heatwave projections has hitherto received little attention in the climate finance discourse despite recognition of the detrimental effects of extreme heat on economic output measures. Through economic, demographic and other channels, future climate conditions can affect the housing market and, thus, the residential mortgage market. Moreover, the potential for contagion is high considering US residential mortgages’ key role in financial cycles and cross-border effects. First, our paper furthers conceptual and empirical understandings of the nexus between future extreme heat and lenders’ credit risk. Second, for the contiguous US states, we show that interest rates are higher and loan terms are shorter in areas forecast to experience a larger increase in the number of hot days over the coming decades after controlling for a range of factors. Rate spreads are higher still in areas where the number of hot days is projected to be extreme. It is lending from non-banks, rather than banks, that appears sensitive to the changing climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to analyze the effect of the political empowerment of women on vulnerability to climate change in 169 countries for the period 1995–2017. The empirical evidence which is based on panel fixed effects regressions shows that (i) the political empowerment of women as well as its components (i.e., civil liberties of women, participation of women in civil society and participation of women in political debates) reduce vulnerability to climate change. (ii) The underlying effect is most pronounced in upper middle income, Latin American, small and fragile countries. (iii) Public spending on education, the effectiveness of governance and education are the real transmission channels through which vulnerability to climate change is affected by women’s political empowerment. The findings are robust to alternative estimation methods such as the Tobit, dynamic fixed effects, and generalized method of moments regressions. Policy implications are discussed, inter alia, the need for sampled countries to encourage women’s political empowerment in order to reduce risks linked to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of climate change adaptation strategies on maize productivity of farms focusing on gender differences. To do so, a selection model generalizing the Heckman (1979) approach and the Oaxaca and Blinder decomposition procedure are specified and estimated. The empirical analysis is based on intra-agricultural household data from the 2018 Harmonized Household Living Conditions Survey (EHCVM) of Togo with a total sample of 8622 maize plots disaggregated by seasonThe results reveal that the average maize productivity of men is about 23.5% higher than that of women. Similarly, the average maize productivity of married women is about 28.5% higher than that of unmarried women. This suggests that married men and women have greater adaptive capacity than their counterparts and are also more likely to improve their productivity. The factors that contribute to the performance of married men and women at the expense of their counterparts are secondary education, producer assets, and climate information. We also find that the use of improved seeds, off-season cropping, and a combination of both strategies are the types of coping strategies adopted by men and married women to increase their productivity. These results have implications for the direction of development policies. These development policies can be more targeted at unmarried women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study contributes to the literature on labour reallocation and adaptation in response to weather anomalies. Existing literature on labour mobility and weather shocks primarily focus on migration to the neglect of worker commuting as a potential adaptation strategy. Utilizing individual-level panel data from the Village Dynamics in South Asia (VDSA) dataset for the year 2010–2014, the present study explores the impact of weather anomalies on migration and commuting as well as participation and earnings in the non-agricultural sector. The fixed effects regression results show that negative temperature shocks induce a flow of labour outside the village through labour out-migration and longer-distance commutes. Temperature stress also negatively impacts non-agricultural earnings. The effects of temperature shocks are heterogeneous across the baseline climate of the villages suggesting evidence of adaptation to weather shocks. The study emphasizes the crucial role of labour mobility and adaptation in coping with weather shocks. The paper concludes with some policy suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder farmers in developing countries are more vulnerable to climate risks, and most of them, because of a lack of access to institutional risk management measures such as crop insurance, rely on traditional measures to offset the adverse effects of such risks on agricultural production. Employing a multinomial endogenous switching regression technique to the farm-level data, this study first identifies the determinants of farmers’ own risk management measures and then evaluates their impacts on farm income and downside risk exposure. There are three key highlights of this analysis. One, farmers, based on their past exposures to climate risks, endowments of resources, and access to credit and information, often use more than one measure or strategy to mitigate, transfer, and cope with the climate risks. Two, all the risk management strategies are found to be effective in improving farm income and reducing risk exposure, but it is their joint implementation that yields larger payoffs. Three, the joint adoption of different adaptation strategies is positively associated with farm size, but with liquidity and information constraints relaxed, the probability of their joint adoption is expected to increase further. These findings impinge on the concept of climate-smart agriculture and suggest the need to identify and integrate traditional farm management practices with science-based innovations to provide an effective solution to climate risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods are predicted to change as greenhouse gas concentrations increase. These disasters may represent sources of information for individuals as they update their beliefs related to climate change. Using a dataset that includes climate beliefs of respondents, we examine the effect of natural disasters on climate change beliefs and find that hurricanes significantly increase the probability that survey respondents from a given county believe that climate change is occurring and that it is human caused. We find that past experience with certain types of natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes) impacts beliefs regarding whether climate change is occurring and if it is human caused. The research contributes to the literature evaluating climate change attitudes by using spatially disaggregate information on climate change beliefs and exposure to a set of natural disasters over time. Characterizing beliefs and attitudes toward climate change and related policies is important since these beliefs are a determinant of individual adaptation and support for policies related to reducing carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rainfed agriculture is the primary impact channel for agrarian economies like Zambia, but it is uncertain how future climate will be and by how much it will affect agriculture, household welfare, and economic growth. We use an integrated framework that combines climate models, biophysical models, and an economy-wide computable general equilibrium model based on a 2007 Social Accounting Matrix to assess the impacts of climate change on agriculture, economic growth, and household welfare in Zambia. We address the uncertainty associated with climate change by using data from the general circulation models based on 819 potential future climate scenarios. There are three main results. First, rainfall is projected to decline with the Southern and Western regions of Zambia worst affected, and temperature is projected to increase by 2050. Second, climate change is projected to reduce crop yield and production, with maize expected to be the hardest hit. These impacts are progressive over time. And lastly, based only on the agricultural impact channel, climate change will likely reduce national gross domestic product (GDP), agricultural production, and household welfare. There are significant regional differences, with the Southern and Western regions projected to bear the most substantial negative impacts of climate change on crop yield and production. These findings have implications for targeting of adaptation interventions needed to sustain the future of smallholder agriculture in Zambia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of rangelands, including climate change adaptation strategies, is primarily responsible for stimulating livestock productivity, which consequently improves food security. This paper investigates the impact of climate change adaptations on food security among pastoralists in semi-arid parts of Kenya, who have not received due attention to date. Using an endogenous switching regression model, the current study revealed that pastoralists’ food security increased significantly when they employed measures to adapt to climate change. The study results also showed that wealthier households and those with more livestock were more food-secure than comparatively poorer households or those with less livestock. Furthermore, the study uncovered a high prevalence of food security among more educated households. The paper therefore recommends that, in Kenya’s semi-arid lands, where pastoralism is the primary means of livelihood, policies advocating adaptations to climate change should be strengthened. Also fundamental to building pastoralists’ adaptation strategies are the consistent monitoring of climate change, the use of early warning systems, and the communication of pertinent information to farmers—and particularly to pastoralists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an initial attempt to investigate the issue of climate migration in Tunisia. Precipitation and temperature are used as climate-representative variables. Indeed, using a new analysis on spatial modeling, this work demonstrates the direct and indirect effects of precipitation as well as temperature on the climate migration of a governorate and those of neighboring governorates through the production of irrigated and non-irrigated plants. In addition, spatial modeling shows that the impact of climate change on migration through cereal and olive production differs from that of irrigated plants, thus demonstrating the importance of taking explicit account of the spatial effects between governorates. The decline in a farmer’s income in (a) governorate is a factor in rural exodus and migration to other governorates with water and a more favorable climate. This cause-and-effect phenomenon is known as negative externalities because some regions are forced to suffer from the consequences of the arrival of a new population. The originality of this method is that it allows the impact of spatial externalities to be taken into account in an effective way. The data used describe the 24 Tunisian governorates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate and trade policy present serious contemporary challenges for all nations. Developed market economies are struggling with trade policy in the modern era of globalization, and the resulting realignments are straining the post-war international economic order. National emissions pledges under the Paris Agreement appear at present to fall far short of achieving the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts that science suggests are needed to remain in a < 2 °C world. Merging climate and trade policy could provide developed economies a strategy for limiting global emissions while protecting and promoting their economic competitiveness. Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, border carbon adjustments (BCAs) that would help protect domestic energy-intensive industry and prevent leakage have been discussed as a mechanism to make unilateral climate mitigation more politically attractive. Especially if implemented non-cooperatively, BCAs open the backdoor to protectionism and retaliation and potentially allow nations to retreat behind static barriers. Developments in international trade policy make this alternative to traditional climate diplomacy more viable today than previously and also increase the chance of climate protectionism. We propose an alternative policy framework—a cooperative sectoral tariff reduction (CSTR)—that would help provide dynamic incentives to improve performance, reduce the chance of BCAs being coopted for protectionist purposes, and create the foundation of a carbon club. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel approach to quantify the contribution of technological diffusion to climate change mitigation. First, we use a parametric model of epidemic diffusion to estimate from micro-level data the determinants and the structure of the networks of diffusion for three key mitigation technologies: electro-mobility, renewable energy and agriculture. We then simulate the propagation of new technological vintages on these networks and quantify the reduction of emissions induced by the diffusion process using a tailored feedback centrality measure labelled "emission centrality". Finally, we investigate how new forms of international collaboration such as climate clubs can contribute to mitigation by catalysing the adoption of new technologies. Our approach can be used directly to measure the contribution of technological diffusion to mitigation or indirectly by providing estimates of global technological diffusion to integrated assessment models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the marginal effects of temperature on the growth rate and variability in growth rate of total factor productivity (TFP) of a country, as measured by its production efficiency relative to a stochastic frontier. Using panel data for 168 countries for the period 1950–2014 to estimate a one-step stochastic frontier function, we find that temperature has a concave relationship with the growth rate of production efficiency and with the variability in this growth rate. We observe that hotter than the average temperature is not only detrimental to production efficiency growth but also makes the growth less stable than otherwise, and these effects are larger in very hot countries with average annual temperature greater than 25 °C. More importantly, we observe that the detrimental marginal effects of higher temperature depend on the level of economic development of a country; they are larger for poor countries relative to rich countries. Our findings have implications for the specification of climate damage functions in integrated assessment models and estimates of country-specific social cost of carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the influence of weather on countries' GDP and their main components of production, namely total factor productivity, capital stock, and employment. Our panel dataset includes annual observations on 103 countries for the period 1961–2010. We find that the main impacts of weather occur through temperature and drive the growth in GDP. Our results show that, for higher levels of temperature, the poor countries are much more strongly impacted than the rich countries. We also find that weather impacts per capita GDP growth through all its factors of production, with the largest impacts on total factor productivity. Again it is the poor countries for which these impacts are the strongest. The findings provide empirical evidence for negative impacts of temperature on economic growth and its factors of production and furthermore point towards climate change as an important driver of international inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat-related mortality tends to be associated with heatwaves that do not allow for sufficient acclimatisation to hot temperatures. In contrast, damage functions and most heatwave emergency response plans do not account for acclimatisation. Using an excess heat measure that accounts for acclimatisation, this paper produces estimates of temperature-related mortality for the five largest Australian capital cities. Fixed effects panel threshold regressions are applied to establish the thresholds that coincide with heightened mortality during extreme temperature events. The estimated parameters associated with these thresholds are then used to develop hindcast estimates for cold temperatures, moderate temperatures, hot temperatures and extreme heat. The estimated thresholds coincide with a notable impact of hot temperatures on mortality, but a limited cold temperature impact. This shows that the burden of risk associated with mortality related to future temperatures and climate change within Australia coincides with heatwaves rather than coldwaves. This is in contrast to recent studies that found that cold temperature-related mortality within Australian capital cities has and will continue to be notable. These studies also found a net benefit from climate change in Australia due to reduced cold temperature deaths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many areas of the natural and social sciences involve complex systems that link together multiple sectors. Integrated assessment models (IAMs) are approaches that integrate knowledge from two or more domains into a single framework, and these are particularly important for climate change. One of the earliest IAMs for climate change was the DICE/RICE family of models, first published in Nordhaus (Science 258:1315-1319, 1992a), with the latest version in Nordhaus (2017, 2018). A difficulty in assessing IAMs is the inability to use standard statistical tests because of the lack of a probabilistic structure. In the absence of statistical tests, the present study examines the extent of revisions of the DICE model over its quarter-century history. The study finds that the major revisions have come primarily from the economic aspects of the model, whereas the environmental changes have been much smaller. Particularly, sharp revisions have occurred for global output, damages, and the social cost of carbon. These results indicate that the economic projections are the least precise parts of IAMs and deserve much greater study than has been the case up to now, especially careful studies of long-run economic growth (to 2100 and beyond). Additionally, the approach developed here can serve as a useful template for IAMs to describe their salient characteristics and revisions for the broader community of analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we tried to show the direct and indirect effect of precipitation and temperature on the production of citrus in Tunisia of a governorate i and the neighboring governorates. To do this, we used a new original analysis of spatial econometrics to take into account in an efficient and finely manner the spatial effects, individual and temporal effects of the spatial autocorrelation. This analysis was done on the basis of global spatial autocorrelation test and the spatial autoregressive model (SAR) as well as the spatial Durbin model (SDM). It appears from our results that the available water in the groundwater table of the governorate i can be an effective solution for the farmer who resides there provided that the means are implemented so that he can benefit. Our robustness results based on the cointegration dynamic panel data, also shows the effect of temperature via the hydric resources of the governorate i and that the neighboring governorates represent a negative spillover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementing an effective climate policy is one of the main challenges for the future. Curbing greenhouse gas emissions can prevent future irreversible impacts of climate change. Climate policy is therefore crucial for present and future generations. Nonetheless, one may wonder whether future economic and social development could be harmed by climate policy. This paper addresses this question by examining recent developments in international climate policy and considering different levels of cooperation that may arise in light of the outcomes of the Conference of the Parties held in Doha. The paper analyses how various climate policy scenarios would enhance sustainability and whether there is a trade-off between climate policy and economic development and social cohesion. This is done by using a new comprehensive indicator, the FEEM Sustainability Index (FEEM SI), which aggregates several economic, social, and environmental indicators. The FEEM SI is built into a recursive-dynamic computable general equilibrium model of the world economy, thus offering the possibility of projecting all indicators into the future and of delivering a perspective assessment of sustainability under different future climate policy scenarios. We find that the environmental component of sustainability improves at the regional and world level thanks to the implementation of climate policies. Overall sustainability increases in all scenarios since the economic and social components are affected negatively yet marginally. This analysis does not include explicitly climate change damages and this may lead to underestimating the benefits of policy actions. If the USA, Canada, Japan and Russia did not contribute to mitigating emissions, sustainability in these countries would decrease and the overall effectiveness of climate policy in enhancing global sustainability would be offset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mankind must cooperate to reduce GHG emissions to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperature. How can the costs of reducing GHG emissions be allocated across regions of the world and simultaneously address growth? We postulate a two-region world and, based on sustainability and egalitarian criteria, calculate optimal paths in which a South, like China, and a North, like the United States, converge in welfare per capita to a path of sustained growth of 1 % per year by 2085, while global CO emissions are restricted to a conservative path, constructed from the Representative Concentration Pathway RCP3-PD scenario, that leads to the stabilization of concentrations around 450 ppm CO, providing an expected temperature change not exceeding 2 °C. It follows from our analysis that growth expectations in the North and the South should be scaled back substantially, not only after 2085, but also in the transition period. Feasible growth paths with low levels of emissions would require heavy investments in education and knowledge. Northern and Southern growth should be restricted to about 1 % and 2.5 % per year, respectively, over the next 75 years. Politicians who wish to solve the global-warming problem should prepare their polities to accept this reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]