Land has long been overlooked in economics. That is now changing. A substantial part of the solution to the climate crisis may lie in growing crops for fuel and using trees for storing
carbon. This book investigates the potential of these options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, estimates the costs to the economy, and analyses the trade-offs with growing food. The first
part presents new databases that are necessary to underpin policy-relevant research in the field of climate change while describing and critically assessing the underlying data, the
methodologies used, and the first applications.
Together, the new data and the extended models allow for a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a land use and climate policy. This book outlines key empirical and analytical issues
associated with modelling land use and land use change in the context of global climate change policy. It places special emphasis on the economy-wide competition for land and other resources,
especially;
- The implications of changes in land use for the cost of climate change mitigation,
- Land use change as a result of mitigation, and
- Feedback from changes in the global climate to land use.
By offering synthesis and evaluation of a variety of different approaches to this challenging field of research, this book will serve as a key reference for future work in the economic
analysis of land use and climate change policy.