POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER10729Climate Change AdaptationWhat Does the Evidence Say?Siddharth SharmaWORLD BANK GROUPSouth Asia RegionOffice of the Chief EconomistMarch 2024POLICY RESEARCH WORKING PAPER 10729AbstractAdapting to climate change is an increasingly urgent policy neither by itself is generally sufficient to fully offset thepriority in lower-and middle-income countries.This sys-effects of climate change.Second,some adaptations maytematic review summarizes the current state of the literaturereduce climate losses in the present,but in the long-run,on adaptation to climate change,and conducts a quantita-households,firms,and farmers might be better-served bytive meta-analysis of the effectiveness of climate adaptation.reducing their climate exposure.Third,the literature tendsThe meta-analysis reveals that observed adaptations offset 46to focus on adaptation by households and farmers,neglect-percent of climate losses on average,with firms using moreing firms.Finally,productivity losses from dimate shocksmay be offset if capital and labor can adjust across sectorsThe review identifies several key lessons.First,purely pri-and locations,but constraints on these reallocations havevate adaptations to climate shocks tend to be less effectivenot been sufficiently studied.This paper is a product of the Office of the Chief Economist,South Asia Region.It is part of a larger effort by the WorldPolicy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp.The authors may becontacted at ssharmal@worldbank.org and jrexer@worldbank.org.Produced by the Research Support Team