The prospects for development in a climate-changed world: anticipating cross-border effects of climate change and climate action
Climate change impacts and the effects of country responses spill across borders. These cross-border, transmitted effects are reshaping the global economy. Flows of natural resources and ecosystem services, traded goods and services, investment and ideas, as well as migration and travel, are shifting. Major economic powers, including the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and China, have launched policies and investment programmes to tackle climate change, but also to boost jobs, growth and innovation at home. Without consideration of transmitted effects such actions could knock away the ladders of development. That in turn could undermine the fragile global consensus to tackle climate change. At the same time, there are opportunities for all countries in a global economy reshaped by climate change. Further attention to the crossborder impacts of climate policy is needed to mitigate any potential threats and ensure greater coherence between climate and development efforts. Here we evolve a framework for anticipating the transmitted effects of climate change. The framework maps crossborder spillovers from mitigation, as well as adaptation measures and direct climate change impacts through five channels: biophysical, trade, finance, people and technology.
