Coastal regions may face massive increases in damages from storm surge flooding over the course of the 21^st century. According to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, global average storm surge damages could increase from about 10-40 billion USD per year today to up to 100,000 billion USD per year by the end of century, if no adaptation action is taken. The study lead by the Berlin-based think-tank Global Climate Forum (GCF) presents, for the first time, comprehensive global simulation results on future storm surge damages to buildings and infrastructure. Drastic increases in these damages are expected, on one hand, due to rising sea-levels and, on the other hand, due to population and economic growth. Asia and Africa may be particularly hard hit because of their rapidly growing coastal mega-cities, such as Shanghai, Manila or Lagos. Read more

The aim of this new journal is to enhance the knowledge and the know-how required for responsible action in the global economy of the 21st century. The global economy is likely to induce and experience transformations that we currently can hardly imagine. It will be characterized by complex networks combining local, national and global linkages, and by surprising interactions between the economy and its political, social and biophysical environments. In view of these new possibilities, the journal wants to preserve the insights developed since the days of Adam Smith in modes of analysis based on the conceptual device of representative agents. It will emphasize the opportunities provided by newer approaches to dynamic social networks, where actions are attributed to heterogeneous agents ranging from physical persons to multinational organizations, and where rationality has more aspects than the classical logical coherence. In view of this perspective, multi-agent modeling of complex economic networks will be an important focus of the journal. Read more

European Climate Forum-Transport Group
June 21-22, 2010
Bergen, Norway

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