Case study n°4: Quantitative Assessments of Transboundary Climate Risks under altered Socio-economic Scenario Assumptions, lessons learned (D3.4.4)

UNCHAIN deliverable D3.4 is a collection of twelve reports summarising the twelve UNCHAIN case studies. This report considers Case Study 4, titled “Quantitative Assessments of Transboundary Climate Risks under altered Socio-economic Scenario Assumptions. A case study on assessing future climate risks to trade in key agricultural commodities.” It describes how an Impact Chain based Climate Risk and Vulnerability assessment was applied in a case study of global trade in agricultural commodities.

Case study 4 features a hybrid global model that combines macro-econometric modelling of international trade flows (mapped by monetary Multi-Regional Input-Output datasets) with detailed agricultural information (based on physical FAO data). The main feature of this modeling approach is its ability to project self-contained the economy-wide implications of multi-national socioeconomic developments. Focusing on agricultural commodity supplies, we demonstrate that our approach facilitates numerical simulations of future trade developments under alternative socioeconomic scenario assumptions. Respective simulation results can be utilized to complement national Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (CRVAs) by numerical estimates of associated changes in transboundary climate risk components.