Climatic Darwinism? Assessing the Agricultural Economic Impact of Adaptation Policy: Evidence From Nationally Determined Contributions

Mitigation and adaptation constitute two primary strategies for addressing escalating climate change. Mitigation focuses on intergenerational justice, while adaptation prioritizes immediate survival. Although the emission‐reducing effect of mitigation policy is widely documented, the output‐enhancing effect of adaptation policy remains underexplored empirically. Agriculture is recognized as the most climate‐sensitive industry, and three‐quarters of the global poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Hence, employing nationally determined contributions as a representative perspective, we designed a multi‐period difference‐in‐differences model to assess the agricultural economic impact of adaptation policy in member nations of OECD and BRICS. Results indicate adaptation policy is expected to increase agricultural output value by 7.5%, with no comparable impact observed in long‐term strategies. Regrettably, quantile regression analysis shows this output‐enhancing effect of adaptation policy is absent at the 25th and 50th percentiles of agricultural output value distributions, constraining its function of promoting sustainable agriculture. Such effect is also absent in nations with mitigation legislation, providing further evidence for contradictions between mitigation and adaptation. Moreover, mechanism analysis reveals increases in agricultural output value resulting from adaptation policy are not only sustainable in their origin but also in their impact. Drawing on Darwinism principles, we warn that failure to effectively adapt to climate risk will propel humanity into a deeper unknown territory.