race and ethnicity and gender dynamics shape economic growth, as well as access to social safety nets and services which are integral to secure livelihoods. Third, some aspects of population dynamics, such as migration, urbanization and age structure are directly linked to adaptation. Hence, analysis of population characteristics and dynamics can be a powerful tool for adaptation programming and for building adaptive capacity. In the midst of a rapidly expanding global adaptation agenda, it is of primary importance to get adaptation and its constituent parts right, in order to generate the most appropriate and effective interventions. This book addresses a major gap in adaptation efforts to date by pointing to the vital role that an understanding of population dynamics and data has in developing pre-emptive and effective adaptation policies and practices. Politics and an oversimplified understanding of demographic dynamics have long kept population issues out of serious discussions in the framework of climate negotiations. Within adaptation actions, however, this is beginning to change, and this volume is intended to provide a framework for taking that change forward. The remainder of this introduction briefly describes the three sections of this book, and how the information and approaches they contain can contribute to helping vulnerable territories and peoples to adapt to a changing climate.
Population Dynamics and Adaptation – Key Concepts and Perspectives Most public and scientific discussions of what to do about climate change include, as they should, concern about population dynamics. Shifts in population trends do indeed have multiple implications in the climate change context. However, their nature and actual impact are often misunderstood or oversimplified, a fact which tends to have population dynamics ignored both in intergovernmental climate change negotiations, as well as in the practice of adaptation to climate change. As argued by Daniel Schensul and David Dodman in Chapter 1, interest in the topic of adaptation is expanding rapidly, but overlooking population dynamics leaves a significant gap in the development and implementation of adaptation projects. Appropriate consideration of population growth, composition and distribution is critical in understanding how vulnerability is distributed across different groups of people. Vulnerability, exposure and adaptive capacity are shaped by demographic issues in specific ways. Schensul and Dodman propose an initial framework for integrating development, adaptation to climate change and disaster risk reduction that uses a holistic understanding of population dynamics to connect the lives of individuals, households and communities. Within the framework of ongoing demographic changes, the urban transition underway in developing regions, especially of Africa and Asia, is far and away the most impactful for the global social, economic, demographic and environmental future, and it is occurring simultaneously with as yet uncharted, but enormously significant, climate changes. In Chapter 2, Gordon McGranahan and colleagues pose a set of crucial questions inspired by the onset of these simultaneous trends: How will urbanization and climate trends interact? How will cities cope with, respond to and plan for this interaction? How will potentially vulnerable groups be affected? What are the i n t ro d uct i o n
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