The history of the UNFCCC climate negotiations over the past 20 years has shown how difficult it is to reach
an international climate agreement that is both legally binding and environmentally effective enough to ensure
that humankind can avoid the worst consequences projected from climate change. Some experts even see the
world drifting towards a 4°C mean temperature rise. It is therefore necessary to start exploring what future,
non-cooperative climate change regimes might be expected to look like. One immediate consequence is that
adaptation to climate change has become increasingly relevant; on a humanitarian, political, economic and
the scientific level. The economic incentive structure of adaptation is different and, actually, more favourable
than that of mitigation, with respect to both their inter- and intratemporal externalities. The ability to adapt
makes a higher level of climate change tolerable. Furthermore, my research shows that adaptation empowers
the poor to develop and to enforce a more equitable use of the atmospheric carbon sink; it may potentially
also lead to an overall reduction of carbon emissions. Ultimately, it turns out that even in a non-cooperative,
asymmetric world, there are prospects for clean technology transfer and adaptation funding.
Drawing on the AK growth model with climate change developed by Buckle (2009a,b), the aim of this work
is (i) to create a tractable, transparent economic growth model that includes climate damages and emissions
abatement, (ii) to develop an adequate analytical representation of adaptation, and (iii) to analyze with the
help of game-theoretic methods how the option to undertake adaptation affects the strategic nature of climate
negotiations and, in particular, the outcome under a non-cooperative climate change regime.