Physical Climate Impacts
These maps display country rankings for four dimensions of climate impact: Extreme Weather, Sea Level Rise, Agricultural Productivity Loss and Overall. Countries are colored in descending order of impact, from dark red to yellow. On the left, select a view of climate impacts: Direct Risks (risks from physical climate impacts alone) and Overall Vulnerability (direct risks adjusted for countries' ability to cope with climate impacts). On the right, select a region and an income group. To see the exact ranking of any country, place the cursor over it on the map.
The maps draw upon a comprehensive new dataset described in a new working paper Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change: Implications for Adaptation Assistance, by CGD senior fellow David Wheeler.
The dataset is the first to cover the entire world: 233 countries and other political jurisdictions. The paper presents a methodology for aid donors and others to craft cost-effective assistance for climate adaptation which can be applied consistently to all 233 states and all three problems, or to any subset.
The map displays color-coded rankings for 169 of the 233 states. Small islands, which are very highly vulnerable to sea level rise, and other small jurisdictions cannot be displayed on a map of this resolution but are nonetheless included in the paper and dataset.
The paper presents two sample applications of the data: assistance for 20 small, poor island states to adapt to sea-level rise and general assistance for all low-income countries to adapt to extreme weather changes, sea-level rise, and reduced agricultural productivity.