Climate change vulnerability

Climate change vulnerability (or climate vulnerability or climate risk vulnerability) is a concept that describes how strongly people or ecosystems are likely to be affected by climate change. It is defined as the "propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected" by climate change. It can apply to humans and also to natural systems (or ecosystems). Related concepts include climate sensitivity and the ability, or lack thereof, to cope and adapt. Vulnerability is a component of climate risk. Vulnerability differs within communities and across societies, regions, and countries, and can increase or decrease over time.
Vulnerability of people and ecosystems with regards to climate change effects is driven by certain unsustainable development patterns such as "unsustainable ocean and land use, inequity, marginalization, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism, and governance". Therefore, vulnerability is higher in some locations than in others. Certain aspects within a region increase vulnerability, for example poverty, bad governance and violent conflict. Some types of livelihoods are regarded as particularly climate-sensitive, resulting in a higher level of climate change vulnerability. These include for example smallholder farmers, pastoralists and fishing communities.
Vulnerability can be grouped into two overlapping categories: These are economic vulnerability, based on socioeconomic factors, and geographic vulnerability. People who are more vulnerable than others include for example people with low incomes, indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly.
There are several tools available to assess climate vulnerability. Because climate vulnerability disproportionally affects low-income countries, climate vulnerability has become an important tool in international negotiations about climate change adaptation, climate finance and other international policy making activities.
Definition
Climate change vulnerability is defined as the "propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected" by climate change. It can apply to humans but also to natural systems (ecosystems), and both are interdependent. Vulnerability is a component of climate risk. Vulnerability will be higher if the capacity to cope and adapt is low.
Climate vulnerability can include a wide variety of different meanings, situations, and contexts in climate change research, but has been a central concept in academic research since 2005. The concept was defined in the third IPCC report in 2007 as "the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes". The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report in 2022 stated that "approaches to analysing and assessing vulnerability have evolved since previous IPCC assessments".
Scale
It has been estimated in 2021 that "approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change".
The vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change is not the same everywhere: there are marked differences among and within regions. Vulnerability can also increase or decrease over time. See regions that are particularly vulnerable below.
Types
Vulnerability can be grouped into two overlapping categories: economic vulnerability, based on socioeconomic factors, and geographic vulnerability. Neither are mutually exclusive.
Economic vulnerability
At its basic level, a community that is economically vulnerable is one that is ill-prepared for the effects of climate change because it lacks the needed financial resources. Preparing a climate resilient society will require huge investments in infrastructure, city planning, engineering sustainable energy sources, and preparedness systems. From a global perspective, it is more likely that people living at or below poverty will be affected the most by climate change and are thus the most vulnerable, because they will have the least amount of resource dollars to invest in resiliency infrastructure. They will also have the least amount of resource dollars for cleanup efforts after more frequently occurring natural climate change related disasters.
Vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change is driven by certain unsustainable development patterns such as "unsustainable ocean and land use, inequity, marginalization, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism, and governance". Therefore, vulnerability is higher in some locations than in others. Certain aspects within a region increase vulnerability, for example poverty, governance challenges and violent conflict. Some types of livelihoods are regarded as particularly climate-sensitive, resulting in a higher level of climate change vulnerability. These include for example smallholder farmers, pastoralists and fishing communities.
Societal vulnerability to climate change is largely dependent on development status. Developing countries lack the necessary financial resources to relocate those living in low-lying coastal zones, making them more vulnerable to climate change than developed countries.
Geographic vulnerability
A second definition of vulnerability relates to geographic vulnerability. The most geographically vulnerable locations to climate change are those that will be impacted by side effects of natural hazards, such as rising sea levels and by dramatic changes in ecosystem services, including access to food. Island nations are usually noted as more vulnerable but communities that rely heavily on a sustenance based lifestyle are also at greater risk.
Vulnerable communities tend to have one or more of these characteristics: food insecure, water is scarce, delicate marine ecosystem, fish dependent, small island community.
Around the world, climate change affects rural communities that heavily depend on their agriculture and natural resources for their livelihood. Increased frequency and severity of climate events disproportionately affects women, rural, dryland, and island communities. This leads to more drastic changes in their lifestyles and forces them to adapt to this change. It is becoming more important for local and government agencies to create strategies to react to change and adapt infrastructure to meet the needs of those impacted. Various organizations work to create adaptation, mitigation, and resilience plans that will help rural and at risk communities around the world that depend on the earth's resources to survive.
Regions that are more vulnerable
All regions of the world are vulnerable to climate change but to a different degree. With high confidence, researchers concluded in 2001 that developing countries would tend to be more vulnerable to climate change than developed countries. For example, Africa's major economic sectors are vulnerable to climate variability. Latin America's vulnerability is considered to be high. In Australia and New Zealand, some indigenous communities were judged to have a higher level of vulnerability and low adaptive capacity. Small island Developing States are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Partly this was attributed to their low adaptive capacity and the high costs of adaptation in proportion to their GDP.
The Arctic is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is predicted that there will be major ecological, sociological, and economic impacts in the region.
In comparison, the climate vulnerability of Europe is lower than in developing countries. This was attributed to Europe's high GNP, stable growth, stable population, and well-developed political, institutional, and technological support systems.
Climate Vulnerable Forum
People who are more vulnerable
People who are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than others include for example people with low incomes, indigenous peoples, women, children, the elderly. More specifically, when looking at the effects of climate change on human health, a report published in The Lancet found that the greatest impact tends to fall on the most vulnerable people such as the poor, women, children, the elderly, people with pre-existing health concerns, other minorities and outdoor workers.
Reducing vulnerability
Vulnerability can be reduced through climate change adaptation measures. For this reason, vulnerability is often framed in dialogue with climate change adaptation. Furthermore, measures that reduce poverty, gender inequality, bad governance and violent conflict would also reduce vulnerability. And finally, vulnerability would be reduced for everyone if decisive action on climate change was taken (climate change mitigation) so that the effects of climate change are less severe.
Climate change adaptation
Climate resilience
Climate justice
Equity is another essential component of vulnerability and is closely tied to issues of environmental justice and climate justice. As the most vulnerable communities are likely to be the most heavily impacted, a climate justice movement is coalescing in response. There are many aspects of climate justice that relate to vulnerability and resiliency. The frameworks are similar to other types of justice movements and include contractarianism which attempts to allocate the most benefits for the poor, utilitarianism which seeks to find the most benefits for the most people, egalitarianism which attempts to reduce inequality, and libertarianism which emphasizes a fair share of burden but also individual freedoms.
Measurement tools
Vulnerability assessment is important because it provides information that can be used to develop management actions in response to climate change. Climate vulnerability can be analyzed or evaluated using a number of processes or tools, depending mainly on the scale of assessment (see below).
Assessments
Climate change vulnerability assessments are available at all scales. Global vulnerability assessments are based on spatial mapping using aggregated data for the regional or national level. Assessments are also done at sub-national and sectoral level, and also increasingly for cities on an urban district or neighbourhood scale. Vulnerability assessment is also done for local communities to evaluate where and how communities and livelihoods are vulnerable to climate change. Studies can vary widely in scope and scale-- for example the World Bank and Ministry of Economy of Fiji commissioned a report for the whole country in 2017-18 while the Rochester, New York commissioned a much more local report for the city in 2018. Or, for example, NOAA Fisheries commissioned Climate Vulnerability assessments for marine fishers in the United States. In some cases vulnerability assessment is done in advance of preparing local climate adaptation plans or risk management plans.
While the macro-scale vulnerability assessment often uses indices, modelling and participatory approaches are also used for which there are a range of tools (see below).
Indicators and indices
Global indices for climate change vulnerability include the ND-GAIN Country Index, which measures national climate vulnerability globally, INFORM Risk Index and the WorldRiskIndex, which include social vulnerability indices. Indicator approaches are also used at national and sub-national levels. They use a composite index of many individual quantifiable indicators. To generate the index value or 'score', most often a simple average is calculated across a set of standardized values. However, sometimes weighting is done according what are thought to be the most important determinants of vulnerability.
Climate vulnerability tracking starts identifying the relevant information, preferably open access, produced by state or international bodies at the scale of interest. Then a further effort to make the vulnerability information freely accessible to all development actors is required. Vulnerability tracking has many applications. It constitutes an indicator for the monitoring and evaluation of programs and projects for resilience and adaptation to climate change. Vulnerability tracking is also a decision making tool in regional and national adaptation policies.
Tools for vulnerability assessment
Similarly as for climate risk assessment, tools for vulnerability assessment vary depending on the sector, the scale at which the study is being carried out, and the entity or system which is thought to vulnerable. Modelling and other participatory tools include WEAP for understanding water resource vulnerabilities and assessing adaptation options. The Vulnerability Sourcebook is a guide for practical and scientific knowledge on vulnerability assessment. Climate vulnerability mapping is also used to understand which areas are the most geographically vulnerable. A systematic review published in 2019 found 84 studies focused on the use of mapping to communicate and do analysis of climate vulnerability.
Examples by country
See also
Climate Vulnerability Monitor
Effects of climate change
Effects of climate change on human health
References
Climate change adaptation
Risk analysis
Vulnerability
Climate change and society