IPCC Report.pdf - Adam Curry

Chapter 1Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, Vulnerability, and Resiliencesome aspects of disaster risk will increase for many communities due toclimate change and other factors (Chapters 3 and 4). Exploiting thepotential synergies between disaster risk management and adaptationto climate change literature and practice will improve management ofboth current and future risks.Both fields share a common interest in understanding and reducing therisk created by the interactions of human with physical and biologicalsystems. Both seek appropriate allocations of risk reduction, risktransfer, and disaster management efforts, for instance balancing preimpactrisk management or adaptation with post-impact response andrecovery. Decisions in both fields may be organized according to therisk governance framework. For instance, many countries, are gainingexperience in implementing cooperative, inter-sector and multi- orinterdisciplinary approaches (ICSU, 2002; Brown et al., 2006; McGray etal., 2007; Lavell and Lavell, 2009). In general, disaster risk managementcan help those practicing adaptation to climate change to learn fromaddressing current impacts. Adaptation to climate change can helpthose practicing disaster risk management to more effectively addressfuture conditions that will differ from those of today.The integration of concepts and practices is made more difficult becausethe two fields often use different terminology, emerge from differentacademic communities, and may be seen as the responsibility of differentgovernment organizations. As one example, Section 1.4 will describehow the two fields use the word ‘coping’ with different meanings anddifferent connotations. In general, various contexts have made it moredifficult to recognize that the two fields share many concepts, goals, andprocesses, as well as to exploit the synergies that arise from theirdifferences. These include differences in historical and evolutionaryprocesses; conceptual and definitional bases; processes of socialknowledge construction and the ensuing scientific compartmentalizationof subject areas; institutional and organizational funding andinstrumental backgrounds; scientific origins and baseline literature;conceptions of the relevant causal relations; and the relative importanceof different risk factors (see Sperling and Szekely, 2005; Schipper andPelling, 2006; Thomalla et al., 2006; Mitchell and van Aalst, 2008;Venton and La Trobe, 2008, Schipper and Burton, 2009; Lavell, 2010).These aspects will be considered in more detail in future chapters.Potential synergies from the fields’ different emphases include thefollowing.First, disaster risk management covers a wide range of hazardousevents, including most of those of interest in the adaptation to climatechange literature and practice. Thus, adaptation could benefit fromexperience in managing disaster risks that are analogous to the newchallenges expected under climate change. For example, relocation andother responses considered when confronted with sea level change canbe informed by disaster risk management responses to persistent orlarge-scale flooding and landslides or volcanic activity and actions withpre- or post-disaster relocation; responses to water shortages due to lossof glacial meltwater would bear similarities to shortages due to otherdrought stressors; and public health challenges due to modifications indisease vectors due to climate change have similarities to thoseassociated with current climate variability, such as the occurrence ofFAQ 1.2 | What are effective strategies for managing disaster risk in a changing climate?Disaster risk management has historically operated under the premise that future climate will resemble that of the past. Climate changenow adds greater uncertainty to the assessment of hazards and vulnerability. This will make it more difficult to anticipate, evaluate, andcommunicate disaster risk. Uncertainty, however, is not a ‘new’ problem. Previous experience with disaster risk management underuncertainty, or where long return periods for extreme events prevail, can inform effective risk reduction, response, and preparation, aswell as disaster risk management strategies in general.Because climate variability occurs over a wide range of timescales, there is often a historical record of previous efforts to manage andadapt to climate-related risk that is relevant to risk management under climate change. These efforts provide a basis for learning viathe assessment of responses, interventions, and recovery from previous impacts. Although efforts to incorporate learning into themanagement of weather- and climate-related risks have not always succeeded, such adaptive approaches constitute a plausible modelfor longer-term efforts. Learning is most effective when it leads to evaluation of disaster risk management strategies, particularly withregard to the allocation of resources and efforts between risk reduction, risk sharing, and disaster response and recovery efforts, andwhen it engages a wide range of stakeholder groups, particularly affected communities.In the presence of deeply uncertain long-term changes in climate and vulnerability, disaster risk management and adaptation to climatechange may be advanced by dealing adequately with the present, anticipating a wide range of potential climate changes, and promotingeffective ‘no-regrets’ approaches to both current vulnerabilities and to predicted changes in disaster risk. A robust plan or strategy thatboth encompasses and looks beyond the current situation with respect to hazards and vulnerability will perform well over a wide rangeof plausible climate changes.49