Figure 1.1: IPCC Schematic Diagram Linking Drivers, Impacts and Responses to Climate Change Temperature change
Precipitation change
Climate Change Sea Level Rise
EARTH SYSTEMS
Climate process drivers Greenhouse gases
Concentrations
Extreme events
Aerosols
Emissions
HUMAN SYSTEMS
Governance
Water resources
Impacts and vulnerability Food Human security health
Health Literacy
Socio-Economic Technology Development Trade
Ecosystems
Equity
Production and Socioconsumption cultural preferences patterns
Mitigation
Adaptation
Source: IPCC, 2007, Figure I.1.
community, there is a long history—from Malthus to Erlich to the recent resurgence of concerns linked to climate change and sustainable development—of blaming population growth for the world’s problems. Consequently, as Michael Zammit Cutajar, who established and headed the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) until 2002, said at an event attended by one of the authors during the Cancun Climate Change Talks in 2010, demographics have never been brought up within the framework of the 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. One of the key gaps is in understanding how vulnerability is distributed across different groups of people, as a particularly important subset or component of system vulnerability. For instance, in Figure 1.1, population and settlements are separated, despite having strong links, and it is not clear where other essential population dynamics like mobility and composition would fit. As this chapter shows, these gaps result in a fundamental misspecification of the continually changing nature of vulnerability and how to decrease it. In addition, the outline for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (to be published in 2014) only identifies population issues in the section on “human health, well-being and security” (with the exception of migration, which is also referred to in the chapter on rural areas). The focus for these issues is on identifying “vulnerable” 2
The De mogra ph y of Ada ptation to C l imate Ch ange
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