Environmental Reliance Climate Exposure And Vulnerability

This paper analyzes environmental reliance, poverty, and climate vulnerability among more than 7,300 households in forest adjacent communities in 24 developing countries. The data are from the detailed, quarterly income recording done by the Poverty Environment Network project. Observed income is combined with predicted income (based on households? assets and other characteristics) to create four categories of households: income and asset poor (structurally poor), income rich and asset poor (stochastically non-poor), income poor and asset rich (stochastically poor), and income and asset rich (structurally non-poor). The income and asset poor generate 29 percent of their income from environmental resources, more than the other three categories. The income poor are more exposed to extreme and variable climate conditions. They tend to live in dryer (and hotter) villages in the dry forest zones, in wetter villages in the wet zones, and experience larger rainfall fluctuations. Among the self-reported income-generating responses to income shocks, extracting more environmental resources ranks second to seeking wage labor. Given high reliance on forest and other environmental resources, a concerning finding is that, in the Africa subsample (dominated by dry forests), the rate of forest loss is more than four times higher for the income&asset poor compared with the income&asset rich. Special attention should be given to the poorest households in dry areas, predominantly in Africa. They are (already) exposed to more extreme climate conditions, they suffer the highest forest loss, and the forest benefits are at risk in global warming scenarios.

This paper analyzes environmental reliance, poverty, and climate vulnerability among more than 7,300 households in forest adjacent communities in 24 developing countries. The data are from the detailed, quarterly income recording done by the Poverty Environment Network project. Observed income is combined with predicted income (based on households' assets and other characteristics) to create four categories of households: income and asset poor (structurally poor), income rich and asset poor (stochastically non-poor), income poor and asset rich (stochastically poor), and income and asset rich (structurally non-poor). The income and asset poor generate 29 percent of their income from environmental resources, more than the other three categories. The income poor are more exposed to extreme and variable climate conditions. They tend to live in dryer (and hotter) villages in the dry forest zones, in wetter villages in the wet zones, and experience larger rainfall fluctuations. Among the self-reported income-generating responses to income shocks, extracting more environmental resources ranks second to seeking wage labor. Given high reliance on forest and other environmental resources, a concerning finding is that, in the Africa subsample (dominated by dry forests), the rate of forest loss is more than four times higher for the income & asset poor compared with the income & asset rich. Special attention should be given to the poorest households in dry areas, predominantly in Africa. They are (already) exposed to more extreme climate conditions, they suffer the highest forest loss, and the forest benefits are at risk in global warming scenarios.

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Assessing the vulnerability of human populations to global environmental change, particularly climate change, is now the main imperative of research and international action. However, much of the research into vulnerability is not designed to feed directly into decision making and policy, creating a gap between the knowledge created by researchers and what is required by decision makers. This book seeks to rectify this problem and bridge the gap. It discusses vulnerability as the central theme and brings together many different applications from disaster studies, climate change impact studies and several other fields and provides the most comprehensive synthesis of definitions, theories, formalization and applications to date, illustrated with examples from different disciplines, regions and periods, and from local through to regional, national and international levels. Case study topics cover sea level rise, vulnerability to changes in ecosystem services, assessing the vulnerability of human health and 'double exposure' to climate change and trade liberalization amongst other issues. Research outcomes stress that science-policy dialogues must be transparent to be effective and concentrate on a mutual understanding of the concepts used. A key research finding is that the most useful information for decision makers is that which shows the separate causes and drivers of vulnerability, rather than presenting vulnerability in an aggregated form. The book concludes with a unifying framework for analysing integrated methodologies of vulnerability assessment and guiding how research and policy can be linked to reduce vulnerability.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, grade: 72, Queen Mary University of London (School of Politics and International Relations), language: English, abstract: Inequality and climate change have emerged as dominant themes of political and social enquiry. This study aims to link these two themes to develop an understanding of the interrelationship between inequality and climate change vulnerability. How does inequality shape vulnerability among different socio-economic groups? How is the vulnerability-inequality nexus related to the process of globalization? A number of negative outcomes of inequality are associated with factors contributing to climate change vulnerability. These will be traced within a discussion of two case studies focusing on Papua New Guinea and Tonga, two countries facing enormous climate risks. The study finds that globalization creates particular environments in which climate change vulnerability may be facilitated in the absence of targeted measures. These environments are particularly susceptible to the negative implications of inequality. Thus not only is inequality problematic from the perspective of access to resources, but also in the sense that political and social institutions are less responsive to the most vulnerable segments of unequal societies. In particular, the issues which create vulnerable environments are related to formal and informal social security as well as urbanization.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Climate fluctuations can trigger events that lead to mass migration, hunger and famine. Rather than attributing the blame to nature, the contributors look at the underlying causes of social vulnerability, such as the processes and organisation of society in the semi-arid tropics. Past and present susceptibility to destitution, hunger, and famine in the face of climate variability can teach us about the potential future consequences of climate change. By understanding why individuals, households, nations, and regions are vulnerable, and how they have buffered themselves against climatic and environmental fluctuations, present and future vulnerability can be redressed. Through case studies from across the globe, the authors explore past experiences with climate variability, and the likely effects of, and the possible policy responses to, the types of climatic events that global warming might bring.