Wuppertal Institute Request - China, CC, Employment

1.) Is there any economic world model that you can recommend to use
in order to quantitatively estimate employment impacts of climate
change/adapation/mitigation with a focus on China (different sectors
and regions are taken into account, GDP and non-GDP sectors,
technological progress and intertemporal changes of financial
investment are considered in an adequate manner, etc.)? Or are there
"adhoc aproaches" (based on scenarios and different indicators as
drivers) which you recommend to use?

2.) According to your point of view, to what extent is such a
quantification of emplyoment impacts for China possible (where are
the limitations, what could be challenges, etc.)?

3.) How do you judge the data situation for China?

4.) What are the potential costs of such a project? Would 100.000 US
$ be enough?

5.) Can you recommend further contact persons (inside and outside
China)?


My response:

1. The DICE (Dynamic Integrated Model of Climate and the Economy) model, developed by William Nordhaus, is a non-proprietary integrated assessment model that is downloadable online. As I mentioned before, I'm not sure it would be possible to use a model like this to estimate something as specific as employment impacts in particular sectors, but it might be possible to make some assumptions about employment as related to GDP and use the model to estimate macro effects.

2. Regarding ad hoc approaches, the Global Development and Environment (GDAE) institute has published two regional studies on the economic impact of climate change: one for the UK and one for the state of Florida, neither of which used a formal model. These are available on their website: http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/policy_research/ClimateChange.htm. They aren't about employment effects specifically, but they may provide guidance on how to develop climate change scenarios.

3. Frank Ackerman at GDAE coauthored the reports mentioned above, and he has also worked with the DICE model. He may be a useful contact for ideas about the China study. His email is frank.ackerman@tufts.edu.