Climate risk assessment at Chinese provinces: A novel Criteria and Context Decomposition for Trade-Off Weighting (CCDTW) approach

This paper introduces the Criteria and Context Decomposition for Trade-Off Weighting (CCDTW) methodology, a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for assessing and ranking climate risks across Chinese provinces. Using a non-balanced panel dataset of 1457 observations, the CCDTW integrates QR decomposition to decorrelate climate risk criteria-extreme low and high temperatures, rainfall, and drought-and socio-economic contextual variables, capturing trade-offs and relative importance among them. Weighted trade-off coefficients are derived to construct a Climate Risk Index (CRI), which facilitates the ranking and benchmarking of provinces over time. The results reveal heterogeneous patterns of climate risk across regions, with increasing trends in extreme temperatures and rainfall in recent years. The CRI indicates that employment, power generation, and population access to natural gas are the primary drivers of climate risk, highlighting the trade-offs between economic welfare and climate mitigation. This framework provides policymakers with actionable insights to design region-specific and time-sensitive climate risk management strategies.