Box TS.4 | Multidimensional Inequality and Vulnerability to Climate ChangePeople who are socially, economically,culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized in society are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses (medium evidence, high agreement). This heightened vulnerability is rarely due to a single cause. Rather, it is the product of intersecting social processes that result in inequalities in socioeconomic status and income, as well as in exposure. Such social processes include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, race/ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability. See Box TS.4 Figure 1 on previous page. Understanding differential capacities and opportunities of individuals, households, and communities requires knowledge of these intersecting social drivers, which may be context-specific and clustered in diverse ways (e.g., class and ethnicity in one case, gender and age in another). Few studies depict the full spectrum of these intersecting social processes and the ways in which they shape multidimensional vulnerability to climate change. |
