Vulnerability and adaptive capacity in forestry in northern Europe: a Swedish case study

Climate change is likely to present new and substantially unpredictable challenges to human societies. The prospect is of particular concern at the local and regional levels, since vulnerability and adaptive capacity are location-specific and many decisions regarding climate-induced risks are made at those levels. In this light, one is compelled to survey stakeholders’ understandings of their situation and perceived problems. Assessments should also include the context of other ongoing changes, such as globalisation, that will impact communities and exacerbate their vulnerabilities. This paper presents an assessment of vulnerability and adaptive capacity in the forestry sector in the Pite River basin in northern Sweden. The study was carried out using a multi-method design encompassing literature surveys, interviews with stakeholders, and stakeholder meetings. The paper concludes that while climate change will have an impact on the region, its effect will be superseded by that of broader socio-economic changes. The results illustrate the need to understand local and regional perceptions of adaptation in formulating appropriate policy measures.     

Context and climate change: an integrated assessment for Barrow, Alaska

An intensive approach to Barrow, Alaska’s adaptations to climate change and variability during recent decades suggests reconsideration of the interconnected roles of science, policy, and decision-making structures. First, profound uncertainties are inherent in unique interactions among the many natural and human factors affecting Barrow’s vulnerability. Science cannot significantly reduce these uncertainties through extensive approaches, but intensive approaches can reconstruct and update local trends, clarify the underlying dynamics, and harvest experience for policy purposes. Second, sound policies to reduce Barrow’s vulnerability to coastal erosion and flooding must incorporate these profound uncertainties and the multiple values of the community. Minimizing vulnerability to climate change is only one of the community’s interests, and must compete with other interests for limited time, attention, funds and other resources. Third, the community itself is in the best position to understand its own context, to decide on sound policies, and to take responsibility for those decisions. In short, local context matters in science, policy, and decision-making structures for adaptation to climate change and variability. Overall, cognitive constraints may be the most important human dimension of climate change. Factoring the global problem into more tractable local problems would make the most of our cognitive capacity.     

The effects of information and state of residence on climate change policy preferences

Discerning the general public’s support of climate change policies is a significant part of understanding the political and social dynamics of mitigating climate change. National level surveys are a useful tool for furthering this understanding but present multiple challenges, two of which are addressed in this paper. The first challenge is that the U.S. public’s limited knowledge of climate change issues requires that information is provided in the survey, and that the content of this information is thought to be critical in eliciting accurate responses. Second, the use of national surveys may mask regional and state differences that result from the distribution of predicted climate change impacts and varying social contexts. We explore these issues by assessing the impacts of (a) the provision of information on climate change impacts at different scales (national and regional) and (b) the respondent’s state of residence (Michigan or Virginia) on climate change policy support. We found a modest relationship between state of residence and policy support, with Michigan residents less likely to support climate change mitigation policies than residents of Virginia. The provision of information on the regional versus national level of predicted impacts of climate change did not influence climate change policy support.     

Calculating Historical Contributions To Climate Change – Discussing The ‘Brazilian Proposal’

This paper discusses methodological issues relevant to the calculation of historical responsibility of countries for climate change (‘The Brazilian Proposal’). Using a simple representation of the climate system, the paper compares contributions to climate change using different indicators: current radiative forcing, current GWP-weighted emissions, radiative forcing from increased concentrations, cumulative GWP-weighted emissions, global-average surface-air temperature increase and two new indicators: weighted concentrations (analogue to GWP-weighted emissions) and integrated temperature increase. Only the last two indicators are at the same time ‘backward looking’ (take into account historical emissions), ‘backward discounting’ (early emissions weigh less, depending on the decay in the atmosphere) and ‘forward looking’ (future effects of the emissions are considered) and are comparable for all gases. Cumulative GWP-weighted emissions are simple to calculate but are not ‘backward discounting’. ‘Radiative forcing’ and ‘temperature increase’ are not ‘forward looking’. ‘Temperature increase’ discounts the emissions of the last decade due to the slow response of the climate system. It therefore gives low weight to regions that have recently significantly increased emissions. Results of the five different indicators are quite similar for large groups (but possibly not for individual countries): industrialized countries contributed around 60% to today’s climate change, developing countries around 40% (using the available data for fossil, industrial and forestry CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O). The paper further argues including non-linearities of the climate system or using a simplified linear system is a political choice. The paper also notes that results of contributions to climate change need to be interpreted with care: Countries that developed early benefited economically, but have high historical emission, and countries developing at a later period can profit from developments in other countries and are therefore likely to have a lower contribution to climate change.     

Climate, water management, and policy in the San Pedro Basin: results of a survey of Mexican stakeholders near the U.S.–Mexico border

This paper reviews regional climate knowledge and vulnerability in the northern Mexico San Pedro River Basin, with a focus on water quality, quantity, and management issues on the Mexican side of the border. A discussion based on the available literature is supplemented by a survey assessing concerns about water and the quality and usability of climate and hydrologic information available to water managers and communities. The surveys indicate that the central concern for urban residents is the lack of reliable potable water due to frequent service breakdowns–with climate change and variability, specifically drought and high temperatures, as contributing factors. Water managers desire appropriate meteorological and hydrologic information to improve planning strategies, but access to this information remains limited. Considerable disagreement exists about who should pay for previously free or low-cost water and wastewater treatment. Urban users have little incentive to conserve because of the present flat, low rate and frustration with service. In rural areas, while a majority of ranchers recognize that variable climate and water loss could increasingly jeopardize their lifestyle, they seldom use meteorological information in planning or modify their water consumption. Climate vulnerability also includes potential for serious environmental health issues due to the presence of heavy metals and organic contaminants in the San Pedro.     

Climate change vulnerability of sustainable forest management in the Eastern Alps

Considering climatic uncertainties in management planning is a prerequisite for sustainable forest management (SFM). The aim of the study was to evaluate climate change vulnerability of the current SFM strategy for commercial forests managed by the Austrian Federal Forests. To that end vulnerability indicators were defined in a stakeholder process (selected indicators were productivity, timber and carbon stocks, biodiversity, disturbances, a tree species’ position in fundamental niche space, silvicultural flexibility and cost intensity) and their performance under climate change scenarios assessed with an ecosystem model. Multi criteria analysis techniques were employed in a partial aggregation of indicators to locate forest stands on a vulnerability surface. Results revealed high vulnerability particularly in the second half of the twenty-first century, where 39.6% of the 164.550 ha study area were assessed highly vulnerable to climate change, indicating a strong decline in the functions and services represented by the indicator system. Water-limited sites on calcareous bedrock were most negatively affected whereas assessment units at higher altitudes responded predominately positive to climate warming. The presented approach, transparently integrating multiple management objectives and allowing a quantitative comparison of vulnerabilities between sites and management strategies, contributes to the development of operational and efficient climate change adaptation measures in forest management.     

Subjective elements in climate policy advice

Subjective elements are an inevitable component of scientific advice on climate policies. Good practice warrants that the level of assumption underlying subjective elements be parsimonious, that their effects on policy decisions be identified, and that policy relevant variables be communicated with appropriate levels of precision. In the case of climate sensitivity, the level of precision is intrinsically difficult to quantify. There is no ‘true’ value of climate sensitivity to be discovered. Rather, best practice consists of the application of multiple methods to estimate the quantity. Best practice provides confidence that some values of climate sensitivity are more likely than others. This lends support to the notion of weighting climate sensitivity values, though the appropriate precision appears to be less than that implied by use of a probability density function (pdf) and greater than that implied by use of a simple range. Use of both a pdf and a range in this case can provide information about likely outcomes and possible extremes.     

Semiquantitative Assessment of Regional Climate Vulnerability: The North-Rhine Westphalia Study

Climate change will bring about a sea change in environmental conditions worldwide during the 21th century. In particular, most of the extreme events and natural disaster regimes prevailing today will be transformed, thus exposing innumerable natural and socio-economic systems to novel risks that will be difficult to cope with. This crucial component of vulnerability to anthropogenic interference with the climate system is analyzed using powerful pattern recognition methods from statistical physics. The analysis is of intermediate character, with respect to spatial scale and complexity level respectively, and therefore allows a rapid regional assessment for any area of interest. The approach is based on a comprehensive inventory of all those ecological and socioeconomic assets in a region that are significantly sensitive to extreme weather (and climate) events. Advanced cluster analysis techniques are then employed to derive from the inventory a set of thematic maps that succinctly summarize – and visualize – the differential vulnerabilities characteristic of the area in question. This information can prepare decision makers and the general public for the climate change hazards to be faced and facilitates a precautionary climate change risk management. The semiquantitative methodology described and applied here can be easily extended to other aspects of climate change assessment.     

Why different interpretations of vulnerability matter in climate change discourses

In this article, we discuss how two interpretations of vulnerability in the climate change literature are manifestations of different discourses and framings of the climate change problem. The two differing interpretations, conceptualized here as ‘outcome vulnerability’ and ‘contextual vulnerability’, are linked respectively to a scientific framing and a human-security framing. Each framing prioritizes the production of different types of knowledge, and emphasizes different types of policy responses to climate change. Nevertheless, studies are seldom explicit about the interpretation that they use. We present a diagnostic tool for distinguishing the two interpretations of vulnerability and use this tool to illustrate the practical consequences that interpretations of vulnerability have for climate change policy and responses in Mozambique. We argue that because the two interpretations are rooted in different discourses and differ fundamentally in their conceptualization of the character and causes of vulnerability, they cannot be integrated into one common framework. Instead, it should be recognized that the two interpretations represent complementary approaches to the climate change issue. We point out that the human-security framing of climate change has been far less visible in formal, international scientific and policy debates, and addressing this imbalance would broaden the scope of adaptation policies.     

Vulnerability of European reindeer husbandry to global change

Reindeer husbandry represents a major land use in the Barents region, and has been predicted to be adversely affected by climate change. This paper considers the likely response of reindeer husbandry to changes both in climate and in socio-economic circumstances in the four countries of the Barents region from 1990 to 2080. Key natural factors include vegetation distribution, and a range of meteorological variables including temperature, wind, snow cover and freezing of rivers. The potential impact of these factors is evaluated quantitatively using the tolerable windows method, the results of which indicate a general but spatially non-uniform decline in the suitability of the region for reindeer husbandry. Relevant socio-economic factors include regional patterns of politics, management and knowledge. A focus on herders’ own perceptions of environmental change and flexibility of response, derived particularly from study sites in Russia, suggests that models of vulnerability to climate change should be tempered by paying greater attention to changes in socio-economic factors. When compared with the potential effect of changing these socioeconomic factors, the vulnerability of reindeer husbandry to projected climate change appears to be comparatively small.     

A rose by any other name ...?: What members of the general public prefer to call “climate change”

Unlike many other environmental problems, the terms used to describe the phenomenon of increasing atmospheric concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gases are many, with multiple and sometimes conflicting meanings. Whether there are meaningful distinctions in public perceptions of “global warming,” “climate change,” and “global climate change” has been a topic of research over the past decade. This study examines public preferences for these terms based on respondent characteristics, including climate change beliefs, political affiliation, and audience segment status derived from the “Global Warming’s Six Americas” classification. Certainty of belief in global warming, political affiliation and audience segment status were found to be the strongest predictors of preference, although “I have no preference” was the modal response. Global warming appears to be a more polarizing term than climate change, preferred most by people already concerned about the issue, and least by people who don’t believe climate change is occurring. Further research is needed to identify which of these two names promotes the engagement of people across the spectrum of climate change beliefs in constructive dialogue about the issue.     

Vulnerability to hunger in Africa: A climate change perspective

Limitations of present assessments of climate change impacts on food supplies are addressed, and a new approach is proposed. This uses the concept of vulnerability to hunger as a point of departure. A typology of vulnerability indices is developed and several measures of vulnerability are explored using information from case studies reported in the literature and research coordinated by the author's research group. An initial synthesis of data about climate change and vulnerability to hunger is illustrated for Africa.     

Role of Education and Training in Agricultural Meteorology to Reduce Vulnerability to Climate Variability

Agricultural meteorologists are concerned with many operational aspects of the effects of climate on crop production, livestock, and natural resource management. For them to continue to make a contribution to the economy of a country they must continually sharpen their skills and remain updated on the latest available information. Training should include a variety of skills, including transferable skills (e.g. communication, numeracy), professional skills (including cognitive skills) and information technology skills. Problem-based learning can be used to promote critical thinking, decision making and analytical skills. More use should be made of computer-aided learning for agricultural meteorologists’ in-service training. In particular, the Internet or CDs could be used to disseminate specific recently developed techniques and applications to improve the understanding of the variability in climate and its effect on agricultural production and natural resource management. Examples that can address the vulnerability of farmers include crop–climate matching, the use of indices, crop modelling and risk assessment together with seasonal outlooks. A strategy needs to be formulated to address these needs and implement changes in the education and training of agricultural meteorologists. These training needs must be constantly updated to meet the changing demands of new technology to cope with climate change and climate variability.     

Air quality planning in California’s changing climate

California is home to some of the worst air quality in the nation and ninety percent of the state’s population lives in areas that are out of attainment with at least one of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Increasing temperatures associated with climate change will make meeting air quality standards more difficult. Under a changing climate, additional emission reductions will be needed to achieve clean air standards. These additional emission reductions and associated costs are called the “climate penalty.” Air quality planning is the process of assessing the emission reductions needed to meet air quality standards and outlining the programs and policies that will be implemented to achieve these emission reductions. This paper reviews the challenges that a changing climate will pose for air quality planning in California and identifies opportunities for adaptation. While state air quality regulators in California are taking enormous strides to address global warming, less work is happening at the regional, air district level. Air districts are the agencies responsible for developing air quality improvement plans. An important first step for regional air quality regulators will be to quantify the climate penalty and understand their region’s vulnerability to climate change. Limitations in regulatory authority could impede measures to improve preparedness. Regional agencies will likely need to look to state and federal agencies for additional emission reductions.     

How inequitable is the global distribution of responsibility, capability, and vulnerability to climate change: A comprehensive indicator-based assessment

While it is generally asserted that those countries who have contributed least to anthropogenic climate change are most vulnerable to its adverse impacts some recently developed indices of vulnerability to climate change come to a different conclusion. Confirmation or rejection of this assertion is complicated by the lack of an agreed metric for measuring countries’ vulnerability to climate change and by conflicting interpretations of vulnerability. This paper presents a comprehensive semi-quantitative analysis of the disparity between countries’ responsibility for climate change, their capability to act and assist, and their vulnerability to climate change for four climate-sensitive sectors based on a broad range of disaggregated vulnerability indicators. This analysis finds a double inequity between responsibility and capability on the one hand and the vulnerability of food security, human health, and coastal populations on the other. This double inequity is robust across alternative indicator choices and interpretations of vulnerability. The main cause for the higher vulnerability of poor nations who have generally contributed little to climate change is their lower adaptive capacity. In addition, the biophysical sensitivity and socio-economic exposure of poor nations to climate impacts on food security and human health generally exceeds that of wealthier nations. No definite statement can be made on the inequity associated with climate impacts on water supply due to large uncertainties about future changes in regional water availability and to conflicting indicators of current water scarcity. The robust double inequity between responsibility and vulnerability for most climate-sensitive sectors strengthens the moral case for financial and technical assistance from those countries most responsible for climate change to those countries most vulnerable to its adverse impacts. However, the complex and geographically heterogeneous patterns of vulnerability factors for different climate-sensitive sectors suggest that the allocation of international adaptation funds to developing countries should be guided by sector-specific or hazard-specific criteria despite repeated requests from participants in international climate negotiations to develop a generic index of countries’ vulnerability to climate change.     

Sustaining agricultural production and food security in Southern Africa: an improved role for climate prediction?

Livelihoods and household food security in the Southern African region can be extremely vulnerable to the negative effects of climate stress as shown by the 2002–2004 ‘complex emergency.’ Climate prediction may prove a valuable resource in mitigating these effects. If climate prediction is applied successfully, it may be able to help guide responses in populations at risk to reduce vulnerability to climate stress. The study presented here seeks to understand what would constitute an improved role for climate prediction in contributing to sustaining agricultural production and food security in Southern Africa. Investigation undertaken during the 2002/2003 rainy season under regional conditions of elevated disaster risk shows, however, that a number of weaknesses and gaps persistently characterize climate information systems in the Southern African region, and constrain such systems’ ability to benefit key sectors, particularly agriculture. The stakeholder identification of such gaps forms the basis for distilling concrete recommendations to improve process and organizational efficiency. Such recommendations, while developmental, should better enable institutions and stakeholders involved in climate prediction to fulfill their potential in supporting development of successful adaptation strategies in populations and sectors at risk.     

Smallholders adaptation to climate change in Mali

This study was undertaken to assess the potential impacts of climate change on agriculture in the Sikasso region of southern Mali, as part of an effort by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to integrate climate change adaptation considerations into their development projects. The region is considered to be the breadbasket of Mali, providing a substantial amount of the country’s food supplies as well as cotton for exchange earnings. The project had two components: modeling how climate change could affect production of cereal and cash crops in southern Mali; and conducting a stakeholder-driven vulnerability and adaptation assessment to identify potential options for addressing current and projected risks to agriculture from climate change. Projected changes in crop yields were based on a previous analysis that was extended for the purposes of this study. The projections suggested that the sensitivity of maize to changing weather conditions is relatively small (generally less than 10% change) under both dry and wet scenarios in 2030 and 2060. White (Irish) potatoes, the primary cash crop, are the most sensitive to changing weather conditions, with yields decreasing under both dry and wet conditions; yields could decrease by about 25% by 2060. Stakeholder workshops, field interviews, and an expert analysis were used to assess current and future climate-related vulnerability and to identify potential adaptation options. The main focus of the assessment was farmers in a village of about 3,000 people in the Sikasso region that practiced a rice-potato rotation system typical to the region. The farmers emphasized adaptation measures that require outside financial and technical assistance, for example installation of a water gate that would retain more water in the inland valley and increase the water table to flood rice fields during the rainy season and for furrow irrigation of potatoes during the dry season. Adaptations emphasized by both the farmers and representatives of regional technical services were crop diversification and germplasm improvement; soil and water management; access to equipment (plows, carts, oxen, and improved stoves); credit stockage villageois (CSV); and fertilizer.     

Adaptation in agriculture: lessons for resilience from eastern regions of New Zealand

Assessments of adaptation in agriculture have evolved considerably from early, top-down, impact assessments. These early assessments, internationally and in New Zealand, provided a limited view of ‘smart farmer’ adaptation. While impact assessment provides some useful insights, experience with vulnerability and adaptation assessment provides a more appropriate foundation for understanding and characterising practical smart farmer adaptation. Findings are presented from 8 years of engagement with farmers in eastern regions of New Zealand. A comprehensive farm resilience picture has emerged from this work. This picture reflects a strong belief from real-world smart farmers that there is sufficient knowledge and experience to adapt to climate change. Proactive farmers are already reading multiple signals, including changes in climate, and are responding. The farm resilience picture provides a foundation for exploring alternative adaptation options and pathways for agriculture. These are presented and discussed in response to two proposed climate change scenarios, a high carbon world scenario and a rapidly decarbonising world scenario. Knowledge intensive, low input systems are consistent with the resilience picture drawn from farmers. Such systems are also consistent with a rapidly decarbonising world scenario and, it is argued, are likely to become increasingly attractive under a high carbon world scenario. A smart farming approach, focused on resilience, provides the basis for development of a response capacity, with potentially significant co-benefits in terms of adaptation and mitigation to climate change. Wider issues and needs to support the further development of farm resilience, and more widely landscape or regional resilience, are identified and discussed. It is apparent from this work that ongoing engagement with smart farmers, focused on resilience, can contribute significantly to development of a coordinated ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ response capacity. Addressing the psychology of change is a fundamental need to ensure wider engagement.     

Learning to Adapt: Organisational Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts

Analysis of human adaptation to climate change should be based on realistic models of adaptive behaviour at the level of organisations and individuals. The paper sets out a framework for analysing adaptation to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change in business organisations with new evidence presented from empirical research into adaptation in nine case-study companies. It argues that adaptation to climate change has many similarities with processes of organisational learning. The paper suggests that business organisations face a number of obstacles in learning how to adapt to climate change impacts, especially in relation to the weakness and ambiguity of signals about climate change and the uncertainty about benefits flowing from adaptation measures. Organisations rarely adapt ‘autonomously’, since their adaptive behaviour is influenced by policy and market conditions, and draws on resources external to the organisation. The paper identifies four adaptation strategies that pattern organisational adaptive behaviour.     

Lost in translation? United States television news coverage of anthropogenic climate change, 1995–2004

Eminent climate scientists have come to consensus that human influences are significant contributors to modern global climate change. This study examines coverage of anthropogenic climate change in United States (U.S.) network television news – ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News – and focuses on the application of the journalistic norm of ‘balance’ in coverage from 1995 through 2004. This study also examines CNN WorldView, CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports and CNN NewsNight as illustrations of cable news coverage. Through quantitative content analysis, results show that 70% of U.S. television news segments have provided ‘balanced’ coverage regarding anthropogenic contributions to climate change vis-à-vis natural radiative forcing, and there has been a significant difference between this television coverage and scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change from 1996 through 2004. Thus, by way of the institutionalized journalistic norm of balanced reporting, United States television news coverage has perpetrated an informational bias by significantly diverging from the consensus view in climate science that humans contribute to climate change. Troubles in translating this consensus in climate science have led to the appearance of amplified uncertainty and debate, also then permeating public and policy discourse.