Costs , The Center for Integrative Environmental Research has been doing a series of studies on the economic impacts of climate change and the costs of inaction. Their release from Wednesday says: "Climate change will carry a price tag of billions of dollars for a number of U.S. states, says a new series of reports from the University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The researchers conclude that the costs have already begun to accrue and are likely to endure." They are looking at, among other things, sea-level rise, more frequent and more intense storms, and extreme temperatures. This echoes and amplifies the conclusions of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change and the IPCC's Working Group II report on "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability."
Biofuels and Food , Another recently released study on the "impact of climate change and bioenergy on nutrition" was jointly written by teams from FAO and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). I've written a good number of times here about the controversies surrounding biofuels. There are many ins and outs to the discussion of biofuels and the paper from FAO and IFPRI looks at what problems it's causing and what potential it has for contributing to "poverty reduction, food security and sustainable natural resource management."
Ports , I wrote here recently about some reports on how shipping is producing GHG and other more localized and highly dangerous air pollution. Here's a story, World Ports Commit to Reduce Emissions, looking at the recent C40 World Ports Climate Conference. The C40 is a superb organization of the world's largest cities. I attended their conference last year and came away with a real sense that these cities are in the vanguard. See my four reports starting here.
Risks , Here's another study, "Climate Change Risk 2008/9," from Maplecroft, a risk analysis group. Their "scorecards" here " provide analysis on four key issues in the response of society and business to climate change: emissions from energy use and land use change; unsustainable energy; climate change regulation and climate change vulnerability, including unique sub-national mapping, allowing organisations to assess their risk for specific locations and regions."
