The prospects for development in a climate-changed world: anticipating cross-border effects of climate change and climate action

This paper offers a framework to support a more systematic approach to the transmitted effects of climate change. It consolidates prior work on transboundary climate risk and spillovers from climate action. The impacts of climate change and the effects of decisions about how to respond, both to mitigate climate change and to adapt, ripple across national borders. 

This paper concludes that not all challenges posed by the transmitted effects of climate change will require global cooperation. Regional initiatives will often be more effective and faster. In the people channel, members of regional economic communities have established intergovernmental migration agreements to explicitly recognise climate migrants – notably in East Africa.