VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE VARIABILITY AND CHANGE

Vulnerability to climate change is a socially and spatially variable phenomenon which may change
over the course of time. The IPCC (2007b) defines the concept of vulnerability as
the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse
effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability
is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate change and variation
to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity.

This definition implies that in order to assess future vulnerability of a system to climate change not
only the exposure of a system to a potential future biophysical hazard level at a global, regional or
local scale needs to be considered, but also the sensitivity of vulnerable groups and the ecosystems
they live in to climate change impacts and their adaptive capacity (Füssel, in press). According to the
IPCC (2007b), the concept of adaptability is defined as
the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and
extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to
cope with the consequences.

In this sense, the adaptive capacity of a human-environmental system is

therefore the potential of this system to reduce its vulnerability and
consequently to moderate the potential impacts of climate change. The
vulnerability factors which are thought to have a direct influence on the social
and biophysical vulnerability of traditional and indigenous communities to global
climate change are described below.

Social vulnerability factors

According to Brooks (2003) social vulnerability exists within a system
independently from external hazards and is therefore not a function of the
frequency and severity of a given type of hazard but of factors which are
incorporated within a human system, for example poverty and inequality,
marginalisation, literacy, food entitlement, health and so forth. The factors
which specifically determine the social vulnerability of traditional and indigenous
communities are described in the following section.

Poverty and inequality

Insufficiency of income, assets or wealth is one of the most important determining factors of
socioeconomic vulnerability of indigenous and traditional peoples. For many of them subsistence
agriculture as well as hunting and gathering remains the core of the household economy, and
food consumption is therefore both the driving force as well as the outcome of indigenous
livelihood systems. They often have very limited additional income from cash crops or other
activities, and are highly dependent on natural resources. Climate change induced hazards could
have devastating impacts on indigenous and traditional peoples’ lives and livelihoods. Climate
change is likely to further aggravate the situation of indigenous and traditional peoples,
especially those living in places that are susceptible to natural disasters, and will consequently
further limit their ability to cope with or recover from shocks (DFID, 2004). Furthermore,
climate change is expected to have negative impacts on efforts for poverty eradication and to
challenge the attempts made to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).