Can developing countries pay for Climate Adaptation? Experimental Evidence through a Contingent Valuation Method (CV) in Nepal | Rastraraj Bhandari

Despite the widespread consensus on the need of climate adaptation finance to support developing countries, funding for climate adaptation projects is limited. There is extensive debate and literature that suggests that adaptation finance will flow from developed countries. This paper, however, studies the willingness to pay (WTP) for adaptation from glacial flooding among university students in Nepal as a way to explore if residents of developing countries can fill the funding gap for climate adaptation. By eliciting WTP using a contingent valuation method, this paper shows that university students in Nepal exhibit a positive value for adaptation finance. Consistent with the literature on WTP, this study finds that gender and level of income have a significant influence on the WTP value while information treatment does not. While the positive WTP value among students of developing countries can be used to fill the financing gap for climate adaptation, it also highlights the urgency with which adaptation finance is required in vulnerable communities.