Economic evaluation of agricultural mitigation and adaptation technologies for climate change: Model development for impact analysis and technological assessment

Abstract

Agricultural mitigation and adaptation technologies developed and assessed in a project organized by the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Research Council were evaluated on an economic basis using a regional-production model, an applied general-equilibrium model, a discrete choice experiment, and a world-food model. Climate-change effects on food production were also evaluated using these models. This paper presents: (1) an overview of the sub-project structure and goals, (2) the six results of the sub-project, and (3) the future direction of the sub-project. Results of these models were subsequently integrated into a single regional model, whereupon selected technologies were economically evaluated using the models developed in the sub-project. The main results are as follows: (1) delaying the introduction of high-temperature-tolerant rice by one year will result in an average economic welfare losses of 429 million yen per year in Japan; (2) higher temperatures under RCP4.5 scenario will cause an increase in 0.2 t ha-1 rice yield in Japan in 2040s compared to a constant climate variables case; (3) the target reduction rate of GHG, which is 25% of the 1990 figure, will imply benefit-cost ratios greater than one for most CH4-suppression technologies developed in the project.