Climate Risk and Adaptive Capacity of Private Sectors at the National Level: An International Comparison

The present study compared OECD countries in terms of their climate risk and their adaptive capacity to climate change. In the course of the comparison, indices of climate risk and adaptive capacity were developed in order to assess these domains for private, civilian sectors at the national level. The index for the risk domain was obtained from combining the indices of two major components, natural disasters and climate change, which in turn were derived from a variety of subcomponents. The index for adaptive capacity was drawn from the indices of four major components, the technological capacity, the social-economic capacity, the resource capacity, and the infra capacity, which also have several subcomponents. The comparison yielded a wide gap between high- and low-risk countries, and between high- and low-adaptive capacity countries. A cross-tabulation of such high and low groups in the two domains produced four subgroups: (a) the low-risk, high-capacity group, (b) the low-risk, low-capacity group, (c) the high-risk, low-capacity group, and (d) the high-risk, high capacity group. The study discussed what each of these groups need to do in order to properly prepare for and adapt to climate change. Implications of the findings are drawn, and the usefulness of the indices is suggested.