Essay Sample on Risk and Benefit Assessments of Climate Change

This section assesses vulnerability and examines economic and noneconomic losses of people and livelihoods due to climate change. Risk and benefit assessments of climate change primarily focus on the financial value of avoided losses and protected assets, but often fail to account for impacts on poverty, climate justice, society, and future risks. Approaches that assess vulnerability and human well-being influence strategies and decisions for risk reduction and help determine priorities in regard to climate change. Recent literature has included more analysis related to systemic vulnerability, including poverty and gender inequality, and has shown that areas with high levels of these have limited access to infrastructure and basic services and are important in understanding societal impacts of climate change. Lack of access to basic services, such as water and sanitation, disproportionately affects individuals from these communities and increase the likelihood that these individuals suffer from hazards caused by climate change, thus further obstructing access to necessary resources. Evidence suggests that successful adaptation and risk reduction strategies not only depend on the understanding of climate hazards, but also human vulnerability and societal impacts, which are important in assessing factors that determine future consequences of climate change. Urbanization has occurred due to increasing adverse effects of climate change in rural areas, and these rapidly growing cities often do not have access to sufficient financial, technological, and institutional resources used in adapting to climate change. Many quantitative studies capture these important conditions that make individuals more susceptible to climate hazards and how they translate into losses and harm. 

The lack of support structures can severely obstruct ways to adapt to climate change. Global assessment shows that vulnerability varies across countries with similar wealth, since vulnerability and well-being depend on a larger set of factors. These assessments also show that options to reduce vulnerability exist at different levels regardless of income level. Recent studies have shown that human vulnerability is largely determined by past and present processes rather than individual events, such as colonial structures, imperialism, chronic poverty, and structural inequality. However, national and regional vulnerabilities do have an impact on vulnerabilities at the individual and community level through structures that determine entitlement and access to resources. Comparative studies, despite using different indicators, largely agree that global hotspots of human vulnerability often occur in regional clusters and are characterized by high levels of vulnerability in terms of socio-economic, demographic, environmental, and governance conditions. Areas with the highest vulnerabilities include regions in Africa, Central America, and Asia. These studies also confirm the quantitative relationship between these vulnerable regions and individuals affected and/or fatalities due to climate hazards. Individuals from highly vulnerable regions are 11 times more likely to be adversely affected by a climate event than those from very low vulnerable regions. Future climate change and hazards are likely to push regions identified as highly vulnerable further into poverty and severely impact livelihood security.