Richard S.J. Tol

For a long time, it was politically incorrect to speak about adaptation to climate change, because it presumably implies accepting defeat in the battle against evil emissions (Burton, 1994). This has changed, perhaps because scientists repeatedly pointed out that climate change cannot be altogether avoided even if we try very hard (Parry et al., 1998; Wigley, 1997), and perhaps because George W. Bush made it blatantly clear that not everybody is going to try equally hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.