Adapting to climate change: Is cooperation good for the environment?

We consider the formation of an international environmental agreement focusing on adaptation to climate change. Members of the agreement fully share their knowledge and determine their investments in R&D by maximizing their joint welfare, while non-members optimize their individual payoffs. Using a three-stage game formalism, we obtain that a large coalition is achievable and that total emissions increase with the size of the agreement. The welfare implications are parameter dependent. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.