This paper evaluates the potential for global reallocation between agricultural and nonagricultural production to contribute to climate change adaptation. Empirical estimates using a global sample of firms suggest that rising temperatures reduce productivity less in nonagriculture than angriculture, implying large potential gains if hot countries could increase food imports and shift labor toward manufacturing. However, model counterfactuals show that subsistence consumption needs and high trade barriers combine to create a “food problem” in which climate change instead intensifies agricultural specialization in especially vulnerable regions. Simulations suggest that reducing trade barriers can significantly reduce climate damages, especially in poor countries.

Using 40 countries’ subnational data, we estimate age-specific mortality-temperature relationships and extrapolate them to countries without data today and into a future with climate change. We uncover a U-shaped relationship where extre6me cold and hot temperatures increase mortality rates, especially for the elderly. Critically, this relationship is flattened by higher incomes and adaptation to local climate. Using a revealed-preference approach to recover unobserved adaptation costs, we estimate that the mean global increase in mortality risk due to climate change, accounting for adaptation benefits and costs, is valued at roughly 3.2% of global GDP in 2100 under a high-emissions scenario. Notably, today’s cold locations are projected to benefit, while today’s poor and hot locations have large projected damages. Finally, our central estimates indicate that the release of an additional ton of CO2 today will cause mortality-related damages of $36.6 under a high-emissions scenario, with an interquartile range accounting for both econometric and climate uncertainty of [−$7.8, $73.0]. These empirically grounded estimates exceed the previous literature’s estimates by an order of magnitude.