Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Asia's Environments: National, Regional, and Global Perspectives nearly half the land area is only one meter (3.3 feet) above sea level.A brutal fall 2020 storm season saw nine typhoons in a row hit the central region, requiring rapid evacuation of millions of people; around 300 people died, and there was extensive property damage from the flooding that lasted for weeks.Việt Nam was an early joiner of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of forty at-risk countries that advocate for stronger climate action at the global level.Members of this coalition have particularly lobbied for increased donor funding for adaptation, and Việt Nam in particular has allocated billions in finance to reduce vulnerabilities and increase the country's capacity to cope with climate impacts.At the same time, however, Việt Nam continues to have large numbers of people who are vulnerable to climate change because of an unwillingness to rethink current development trajectories.Resource-intensive economic growth in the past three decades has degraded many ecosystems, and concentrated populations and assets in coastal and floodplain areas that place them in the path of climate impacts like sea level rise and increased frequency of hurricanes.Export-led industrial policy and intensive input-heavy agriculture are among the policies that have increased risk and reduced overall resilience.This situation begs the question of whether countries concerned about being victims of climate change are doing enough themselves to avoid creating the conditions by which people become vulnerable. Defining VulnerabilityLike all social concepts, what "vulnerability" is remains in the eye of the beholder, as there is no agreed-upon definition or way to measure it.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose regular assessments of the state of climate science have included discussions of how different areas of the world are at risk, emphasizes that vulnerability is a function of "exposure, " "sensitivity, " and "adaptive capacity." Exposure is generally understood as the presence of populations, assets, and resources where a hazard may occur or which might potentially be affected The Politics of Climate Vulnerability in Asia By Pamela McElwee Like all social concepts, what "vulnerability" is remains in the eye of the beholder, as there is no agreed-upon definition or way to measure it.
DOI: 10.65959/eaa.1692
Author: Pamela McElwee
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7130523358