Adaptation in Target-Based International Environmental Agreements

Abstract In this paper, we examine the impact of adaptive investments on international environmental agreements that, like the current Paris Agreement, have a bottom-up nature, with signatory countries committing to a common emission target (T-agreement). Furthermore, we contrast the effectiveness of the T-agreement with that of an agreement in which signatory countries act as a coalition and make their decisions jointly (J-agreement). Under a T-agreement, the strategic relationships between countries’ emissions, as well as between adaptation and mitigation, align with the results found in the literature on J-agreements. However, the impact of adaptation and of the number of countries participating to the agreement differ significantly. These results offer new insights into the interplay between emissions, adaptation, and participation in the context of international environmental agreements, and they highlight the critical role played by the agreement’s structure and substance.