The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience
Government expenditure and taxation have a significant influence on the long-term adaptation and resilience of societies to climate and other environmental shocks. Unprecedented fiscal spending in the COVID-19 recovery offered an opportunity to systematically enhance adaptation and resilience to fut...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Nature
2024
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| _version_ | 1826313768350515200 |
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| author | Sadler, A Ranger, N Fankhauser, S Marotta, F O’Callaghan, B |
| author_facet | Sadler, A Ranger, N Fankhauser, S Marotta, F O’Callaghan, B |
| author_sort | Sadler, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Government expenditure and taxation have a significant influence on the long-term adaptation and resilience of societies to climate and other environmental shocks. Unprecedented fiscal spending in the COVID-19 recovery offered an opportunity to systematically enhance adaptation and resilience to future shocks. But did the ‘build back better’ rhetoric manifest in more resilient policy? We develop a dedicated fiscal policy taxonomy for climate change adaptation and resilience (A&R)—the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Financing Taxonomy (CRAFT)—and apply this to analyse ~8,000 government policies across 88 countries. We find that US$279–334 billion (9.7–11.1%) of economic recovery spending potentially had direct A&R benefits. This positive spending is substantial in absolute terms but falls well below adaptation needs. Moreover, a notable portion (27.6–28%) of recovery spending may have had negative impacts on A&R, acting to lock in non-resilient infrastructure. We add a deep learning algorithm to consider A&R themes in associated COVID-19 policy documents. Compared with climate mitigation, A&R received only one-third of the spending and was mentioned only one-seventh as frequently in policy documents. These results suggest that the COVID-19 fiscal response missed many opportunities to advance climate A&R. We draw conclusions for how to better align fiscal policy with A&R. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T08:22:57Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:3ed35ebd-36aa-4a7c-8e9d-0849f17f2658 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:20:13Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Springer Nature |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:3ed35ebd-36aa-4a7c-8e9d-0849f17f26582024-08-08T10:08:31ZThe impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilienceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:3ed35ebd-36aa-4a7c-8e9d-0849f17f2658EnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer Nature2024Sadler, ARanger, NFankhauser, SMarotta, FO’Callaghan, BGovernment expenditure and taxation have a significant influence on the long-term adaptation and resilience of societies to climate and other environmental shocks. Unprecedented fiscal spending in the COVID-19 recovery offered an opportunity to systematically enhance adaptation and resilience to future shocks. But did the ‘build back better’ rhetoric manifest in more resilient policy? We develop a dedicated fiscal policy taxonomy for climate change adaptation and resilience (A&R)—the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Financing Taxonomy (CRAFT)—and apply this to analyse ~8,000 government policies across 88 countries. We find that US$279–334 billion (9.7–11.1%) of economic recovery spending potentially had direct A&R benefits. This positive spending is substantial in absolute terms but falls well below adaptation needs. Moreover, a notable portion (27.6–28%) of recovery spending may have had negative impacts on A&R, acting to lock in non-resilient infrastructure. We add a deep learning algorithm to consider A&R themes in associated COVID-19 policy documents. Compared with climate mitigation, A&R received only one-third of the spending and was mentioned only one-seventh as frequently in policy documents. These results suggest that the COVID-19 fiscal response missed many opportunities to advance climate A&R. We draw conclusions for how to better align fiscal policy with A&R. |
| spellingShingle | Sadler, A Ranger, N Fankhauser, S Marotta, F O’Callaghan, B The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title | The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title_full | The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title_fullStr | The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title_full_unstemmed | The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title_short | The impact of COVID-19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
| title_sort | impact of covid 19 fiscal spending on climate change adaptation and resilience |
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