Year: 2013
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report (IPCC-AR5) considers new evidence of climate change based on many independent scientific analyses from observations of the climate system, paleoclimate archives, theoretical studies of climate processes and simulations using climate models. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased”. “Changes in many extreme weather and climate events have been observed since about 1950. It is very likely that the number of cold days and nights has decreased and the number of warm days and nights has increased on the global scale”. “It is likely that the frequency of heat waves has increased”. “There are likely more land regions where the number of heavy precipitation events has increased than where it has decreased”. “The frequency or intensity of heavy precipitation events has likely increased”. In the meantime, it is now well known that climate change consequences (increasing magnitude and frequency of droughts, floods, storms and/or coastal erosion) will mainly impact the most vulnerable. Although there are multiple ways to define vulnerability, we here define vulnerability as the exposure of individuals or collective groups to livelihood stress as a result of the impacts of such climate change and consecutive socioeconomic and environmental changes. In the context of this paper, we will focus on natural disasters induced by “climate change”. We will travel across developing countries to illustrate the increasing vulnerability of the poor and the way they –sometimes– develop effective adaptation responses. We conclude that, for many reasons (mainly the protection of individual, financial and/or political interests), the poor will become poorer.
Source: ORBi (University of Liège)
Author: Pierre Ozer
Institution: University of Liège
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W25694513