The list of authors of Assessing the Costs of Adaptation to Climate Change reads like a Who's Who of the UK climate impacts community. The authors do not aim to perform a new assessment of adaptation costs. Their aim rather is to review the existing assessments, show their deficits, and thereby define the research agenda for the next few years. This they certainly achieve.

The book consists of eight chapters. The first chapter gives an overview over the existing global estimates of adaptation costs and points out the shortcomings in these. The following six chapters review the sectoral assessments in the areas of agriculture, water, health, coastal protection, infrastructure and natural ecosystems. The final chapter then looks into the costs and benefits of adaptation. In many cases costs of adaptation to climate change in developing countries are severely underestimated, since current adaptation deficits, i.e., missing adaptation to present climatic conditions, are not taken into account. In addition there is a severe lack of bottom-up case studies, leading to assessments that are not sufficiently grounded in hard data.

The book certainly is a worthwhile read for those in the academic community who are interested in the impacts of climate change. Unfortunately it is not suitable for a wider audience, since a real understanding requires background information that cannot be given in a book of this length.