Editorial: Exploring new development patterns for climate change resilience and mitigation

Editorial on the Research Topic
Exploring new development patterns for climate change resilience and mitigation

The scope of this Research Topic is to foster ideas and recommendations regarding future options to ensure the resilience of emerging and developed economies in mitigating climate change risks and effects. A steady economic growth of nations is always desirable and a target for national decision-makers, but additional involvement of key stakeholders in curbing environmental degradation is critical for sustainable development. This Research Topic brings together four papers to clarify the challenges and open new paths and perspectives in this sense. The most important elements in addressing climate change challenges were financial stability and sustainability. Moreover, healthcare costs are also considered, bearing in mind the potential of pollution and global warming to affect human health. Corroborating all stakeholders’ actions by considering relevant influences in climate change resilience and mitigation for sustainable development is critical.

Human health appears to be a major concern related to the effects of climate change. In this sense, Socol et al. assessed the impact of climate change on healthcare costs in the European Union during 2000–2020. The authors used two relevant indicators to capture climate change influence, like temperature and carbon emissions, revealing a positive correlation between them and health spending in the analyzed panel.

While building resilience strategies, Grosu et al. found that evaluating the financial sustainability of oil and gas firms during 2008–2022 is important. In companies analyzed by the authors, two indicators were important for financial sustainability: liquidity and solvency. Internalizing environmental sustainability measures and firms’ economic performance is positively correlated. The conclusions highlighted the relevance of performance related to a specific threshold, which can increase the positive results of firms that adopt an environmentally friendly attitude.

Chiana’s financial stability was evaluated Meng et al. incorporated carbon tax and green supporting factors in their analysis in an innovative, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. A smooth climate transition in the presence of financial stability is important, and they highlighted relevant recommendations in controlling and elaborating country-specific financial risk policies. Coordination between financial and industrial policies is also important in the green transition process.

Climate risks and farmers’ adaptation to seasonal droughts in China have been evaluated by Zhu et al. The authors pointed out the importance of supportive policies in the adaptation process of farmers and their direct involvement in proactive solutions to climate risks.

We conclude that while economic development and stability represent important targets for all nations, the negative effects of climate change target of all stakeholders. Additionally, as presented by the papers mentioned above, human health and development must be a key pillar of the new development model.

Future research should focus on developing new solutions for bringing together all forces, capturing all relevant factors in mitigating climate change, and conducting a more sustainable and human-centered development.

Author contributions

FN: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. AN: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. FA: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. HD: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing. IK: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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