Considering the Interface of Climate and Productive Natural Resource Use

This dissertation includes three papers related to climate, resource use, and market applications for sustainable development in developed/developing countries. The first paper describes the development of a game-theoretic economic model investigating the linkages between credit and insurance markets for smallholder farmers, and how a new market tool (weather index insurance) may help to overcome credit constraints in rural financial markets of developing countries. The second paper extends consideration of agricultural climate-risk management to potential skill in predictions of late-season rainfall over monsoonal Indonesia, with the aim of better understanding: (i) forecast skill and risk in this region, and (ii) how forecast information may be better tied with financial market products, such as index insurance, to improve smallholder farmer incentives, decision-making, and livelihoods under climate risk. The third paper, in turn, looks at forest resource management in Canada, and what the application of new carbon constraints and a market for carbon would mean for investment, production decisions, and indicators of sustainable forest management in the Canadian boreal, both in respects to the management of the landscape (i.e. the forest resource), and the development of the forestry sector and forest-based communities.