Over the past 50 years, severe weather events have claimed almost almost 1 million lives and cost over a trillion dollars in economic losses.  Developing countries have shouldered a disproportionate share of this burden.  Climate change has been shown to increase those risks, imposing significant losses on local economies.  Case studies developed by the ECA working group report a cost of 19 per cent of GDP annually by 2030 while the World Bank's Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change suggests it will cost USD 75-100 billion globally per year to adapt to climate change from 2010-2050.  Climate change profoundly affects local economies in two ways:

• Event hazards--extreme weather such as storms, hurricanes, droughts, coastal or inland flooding and bushfires

• Gradual shift hazards--consequences of climate change that take shape over time, such as sea level rise and salinization, and a wide range of consequences.  For example, climate zone shifts can increase vector-borne disease transmission and can alter agricultural yields

CfRN and various partners are working to develop a systematic approach to adaptation.  The plan is designed to provide policy makers with a comprehensive end-to-end  process to develop a robust business case for adaptation in the highly uncertain context of climate change.  To achieve this, the methodology uses a modular approach to systematically 1) assign a price (both in human and economic terms) on the overall climate risk of today and the future to prioritize problems, 2) identify and prioritize an actionable portfolio of adaptation measures and 3) create a roadmap to implementation and an investment plan.

The approach was developed by the ECA working group, a consortium of major global non-governmental organizations, public sector and private sector groups.  In addtion to developing a methodology, the working group built practical experience through on-the-ground application in eight test cases, in which over 600 adaptation measures were tested with experts.  This methodology has since been applied sucessfully in other countries.