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Adapting to Climate Change in Eastern Europe and Central Asia
will be the result of several factors: Do people live in the flood plain? Have toxic waste or water treatment plants been sited in the flood plain? Does the municipality have the organizational and financial resources to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases, help people access shelter, and quickly rebuild washed-out infrastructure, thereby reducing postdisaster loss of life and promoting faster recovery? Sensitivity depends on how stressed the current system is. A system or a population already close to its limits will suffer great damages even from small shocks. Examples include poor individuals without any savings, congested and poorly maintained transport systems, populations in poor health, or water basins depleted of underground water resources. Together, exposure and sensitivity determine the potential impacts confronting a community or a system—the impacts without considering adaptation. However, vulnerability also depends on how capable a system is of adapting and coping. Adaptation can be planned or autonomous; it can be anticipatory or reactive. The ability to adapt is a function of organizational skills, access to and ability to use information, and access to financing. The distinction between sensitivity and adaptive capacity can be blurry. Sensitivity can be the degree to which a system is affected (positively or negatively) in its current form by a climate trend, climate variability, or a climate shock. However, adaptive capacity is dynamic and affects future sensitivity. In practice, the same factors that determine current sensitivity may also determine the extent of adaptive capacity. A poor household will be sensitive to shocks; it will also usually have less adaptive capacity due to its lack of resources to finance relocation or protective infrastructure such as dykes, stilts, or irrigation systems. The exposure-sensitivity-adaptive capacity approach helps to identify the combination of factors that amplify or reduce the impact of climate change and to distinguish exogenous factors (exposure) from those amenable to local policy actions (adaptive capacity—hence, future sensitivity). It can be applied to particular regions or cities or sector by sector, as illustrated by the Australian government’s application of this framework to agriculture (table 1.1).
A Vulnerability Index for Eastern Europe and Central Asia We applied our vulnerability approach in an attempt to develop a simple vulnerability index for ECA countries. This is only a quick summary offered to guide more in-depth questioning. In particular, conditions within countries may vary substantially. Fay and Patel