and social groupings, value judgments about the acceptability of potential risks, and potential adaptation and mitigation measures [emphasis added] (Schneider et al., 2007, p. 784). While this type of reference, a carryover from the ubiquitous IPAT formula (emissions as a function of population, affluence and technology), keeps population issues in the discussion, it only further accentuates the need for a stronger framework in which to consider population dynamics over time, particularly as they include more than just population growth. Without this framework, and without significant attention to coming social changes rather than just climatic ones, adaptation will remain in many ways merely reactive.
The case for incorporating population dynamics One of the consistent themes of the literature on the links among disaster risk reduction, development and climate change is the isolation between practitioners of each (Thomalla et al., 2006). Cannon and Müller-Mann (2010, p. 627) argue that “the conceptualisation of climate change and adaptation has so far been largely dominated by natural science perspectives”. In addition, as advances in remote sensing of the impacts of disasters on the built environment have outpaced monitoring of impacts on population (see the discussion below of remote sensing after the Haiti earthquake), the former have driven the understanding of both impact and post-disaster responses. The result is that vulnerability may be defined as something that can be observed remotely—particularly the different types of built environment across varying geographies—by virtue of the available data inputs into the calculus. Incorporation of population dynamics can help to address these limitations, both directly and indirectly, through recognition of the central role population dynamics play in livelihoods, location, economic vulnerability, environmental vulnerability and resilience. The benefits of including population dynamics are several. First, population projections can provide reliable scenarios about the size and composition of the population in the future, with important implications for policy. For instance, rates of national population growth and urbanization and projected changes in age structure can provide a snapshot of the nature of national and local populations decades into the future, matching the timeline of climate impacts. Second, population issues are closely linked to economic and social development. Fertility, migration, spatial distribution, age structure, household size and composition, linked to issues such as race and ethnicity and gender dynamics, affect formal and informal economic development, access to social safety nets and services, provision of education, dependency ratios and other key components of development. These factors, which are integral to secure livelihoods, are essential components of resilience in the face of the broad range of environmental changes projected to occur as the climate changes. This is a pathway to adaptation that O’Brien et al. (2008) call “indirect adaptation”, and describe as necessary for poverty alleviation, climate response and the synergy between the two in the long term. Components of development provide mechanisms linking population dynamics and Popul at i ng Adap tat i o n I nco rp o rat i ng P o p ul at i o n Dy nam i c s i n C li m at e Ch ange Adap tat i o n P o li c y an d P ract i c e
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