Chapter 19: Emergent Risks and Key Vulnerabilities
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19.1. Purpose, Scope, and Structure of this Chapter
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19.1.1. Historical Development of this Chapter
AR4 emphasized the differences in vulnerability between developed and developing countries but also assessed new literature describing vulnerability pertaining to various aggregations of people (such as by ethnic, cultural, age, gender, or income status) and response strategies for avoiding key impacts. The RFCs were updated and the Synthesis Report (IPCC, 2007a) noted that they “remain a viable framework to consider key vulnerabilities” (IPCC, 2007a, Section 5.2).
Box 19-2 Definitions
Vulnerability: The propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt. A broad set of factors such as wealth, social status, and gender determine vulnerability and exposure to climate-related risk.
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19.6. Key Vulnerabilities, Key Risks, and Reasons for Concern
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19.6.1. Key Vulnerabilities
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19.6.1.2. Differential Vulnerability and Exposure
Wealth, education, ethnicity, religion, gender, age,class/caste, disability, and health status exemplify and contribute to the differential exposure and vulnerability of individuals or societies to climate and non-climaterelated hazards (see IPCC, 2012a). Differential vulnerability is, for example, revealed by the fact that people and communities that are similarly exposed encounter different levels of harm, damage, and loss as well as success of recovery (see Birkmann, 2013). The uneven effects and uneven suffering of different population groups and particularly marginalized groups is well documented in various studies (Bohle et al., 1994; Kasperson and Kasperson, 2001; Birkmann, 2006a; Thomalla et al., 2006; Sietz et al., 2011, 2012). Factors that determine and influence these differential vulnerabilities to climate-related hazards include, for example, ethnicity (Fothergill et al., 1999; Elliott and Pais, 2006; Cutter and Finch, 2008), socioeconomic class, gender, and age (O’Keefe et al., 1976; Sen, 1981; Peacock, 1997; Jabry, 2003; Wisner, 2006; Bartlett, 2008; Ray-Bennett, 2009), as well as migration experience (Cutter and Finch, 2008) and homelessness (Wisner, 1998; IPCC, 2012a). Differential vulnerabilities ofspecific populationscan often be discerned at a particular scale using quantitative or qualitative assessment methodologies (Cardona, 2006, 2008; Birkmann et al., 2013b). Various population groups are differentially exposed to and affected by hazards linked to climate change in terms of both gradual changes in mean properties and extreme events. For example, in urban areas, marginalized groups (particularly as a result of gender or wealth status or ethnicity) often settle along rivers or canals, where they are highly exposed to flood hazards or potential sea level rise (see Table 19-4; e.g., Neal and Phillips, 1990; Enarson and Morrow, 1998; Neumayer and Plümper, 2007; Sietz et al., 2012). Studies emphasize that vulnerability in terms of gender is not determined through biology, but in most cases by social structures, institutions, and rule systems; hence women and girls are often (not always) more vulnerable because they are marginalized from decision making or experience discrimination in development and reconstruction efforts (Fordham, 1998; Houghton, 2009; Sultana, 2010; IPCC, 2012a).
