Adaptation to Climate Change in 172 Countries: the Importance of Intelligence

A large body of literature examines the determinants of countries’ vulnerability to climate change, focusing on human capital in terms of educational attainment. The role that individual intellectual coefficients might play in the ability to adapt to these changes has not yet been studied. Our study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by setting itself the specific objective of analyzing the effect of the intellectual coefficient on vulnerability to climate change. Using ordinary least square (OLS) and two-stage least square (2SLS) in a cross-section with data from 171 countries between 1995 and 2020, we show that increasing the intelligence coefficient reduces vulnerability to climate change both directly and indirectly. The strongest indirect effects occur through social adaptation. These results are robust to the use of additional controls such as geographic, economic, and historical confounders and social and cultural characteristics. Vulnerability to climate change analysis may take these findings into account and incorporate intellectual coefficient into the design of the international social policy.