Download Which Countries are Particularly Vulnerable?

POLICY BRIEF
Which Countries are Particularly Vulnerable?
Science Doesn’t Have the Answer!
Key Findings
• Discussions about the prioritisation of adaptation finance under the UNFCCC are characterised by ambiguity, reflecting the lack of agreement among Parties on what it means to be
‘particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.’
• ‘Vulnerability’ is not a quantifiable attribute that can be objectively measured. There is no
objectivist ‘truth’ in vulnerability assessment; instead it is the socially constructed outcome of a
negotiation process, reflecting different and biased interpretations of vulnerability.
• Climate negotiators would be misguided to think scientists could develop a definitive, objective and unchallengeable method to rank countries according to their vulnerability to climate
change. Scientists cannot resolve political ambiguity.
• To measure and rank the vulnerability of countries requires normative decisions. To make
such decisions is the domain of politics and should therefore be the responsibility of negotiators, not of scientists.
• It is unlikely that Parties could reach agreement on any one of the vulnerability indices put
forward. Any resulting ranking is likely to be contested by countries that, according to the
ranking, are not particularly vulnerable and therefore not prioritised for adaptation funding.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change defines
vulnerability as ‘the degree to which a system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate
change, including climate variability and extremes.’ Unfortunately this definition provides no guidance on how to interpret Article 4.4. None of the research on vulnerability to
date has resulted in a systematic and agreed way of assessing, measuring, expressing and comparing the vulnerability of countries to climate change. As a result, discussions
about vulnerability under the Convention are characterised
by ambiguity (Box 1).
Photo: © sbuwert-flickr
Vulnerability: a poorly defined concept without an
agreed metric
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change commits developed countries ‘to assist developing
countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to
those adverse effects’ (Article 4.4). Ever since the Convention was agreed in 1992, the question has arisen of what it
means to be ‘particularly vulnerable’, and how it is decided
which countries fall into this category. The question is important, because countries classified as ‘particularly vulnerable’ would be prioritised for adaptation funding. There is
therefore an overt political dimension to what appears otherwise to be a purely academic question.
Box 1: Ambiguity about the meaning of ‘particularly vulnerable’ in the climate negotiations
The word ‘vulnerable’ appears four times
in the Convention; it is preceded by the
adverb ‘particularly’ three times. Its first
mention is in the nineteenth preambular
paragraph, which already appears to give
at least a partial answer to the question of
which countries are particularly vulnerable:
‘… low-lying and other small island
countries, countries with low-lying coastal,
arid and semi-arid areas or areas liable
to floods, drought and desertification, and
developing countries with fragile mountainous ecosystems are particularly vulnerable
to the adverse effects of climate change …’
The second mention is in Article 3.2,
which is the principle that ‘[t]he specific
needs and special circumstances of developing country Parties, especially those that
are particularly vulnerable to the adverse
effects of climate change, and of those Parties, especially developing country Parties,
that would have to bear a disproportionate
or abnormal burden under the Convention, should be given full consideration.’
The third mention is in Article 4.4, cited
above, which can be considered as making the first part of Article 3.2 operational.
Article 4.8 of the Convention reiterates
in part the nineteenth preambular paragraph, listing several groups of countries
with ‘specific needs and concerns’:
‘In the implementation of the commitments in this Article, the Parties shall give
full consideration to what actions are necessary under the Convention, including actions related to funding, insurance and the
transfer of technology, to meet the specific
needs and concerns of developing country
Parties arising from the adverse effects of
climate change and/or the impact of the
implementation of response measures, especially on:
(a) Small island countries;
(b) Countries with low-lying coastal areas;
(c) Countries with arid and semi-arid areas, forested areas and areas liable to
forest decay;
(d) Countries with areas prone to natural
disasters;
(e) Countries with areas liable to drought
and desertification;
(f) Countries with areas of high urban atmospheric pollution;
(g) Countries with areas with fragile ecosystems, including mountainous ecosystems;
(h) Countries whose economies are highly
dependent on income generated from
the production, processing and export,
and/or on consumption of fossil fuels
and associated energy-intensive products; and
(i) Land-locked and transit countries.’
However, this listing is of limited use in
the negotiations because it includes countries vulnerable to the impact of the implementation of response measures as well as
countries vulnerable to the adverse effects
of climate change.
The group of least developed countries
gets a special mention in the Convention.
Article 4.9 states that ‘[t]he Parties shall take
full account of the specific needs and special situations of the least developed countries in their actions with regard to funding
and transfer of technology.’
The Kyoto Protocol contains the word
‘vulnerable’ once, in Article 12.8. This article provided the basis of what later became
the Adaptation Fund:
‘The Conference of the Parties serving as
the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol
shall ensure that a share of the proceeds
from certified project activities [under the
Clean Development Mechanism] is used
to cover administrative expenses as well as
to assist developing country Parties that are
particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to meet the costs of
adaptation.’
Meanwhile, the question of which countries might be considered particularly vulnerable remained unsolved. The Adaptation Fund Board faced this issue when
preparing the Strategic Priorities, Policies
and Guidelines of the Adaptation Fund. In
Paragraph 10 it states:
‘Eligible Parties to receive funding from
the Adaptation Fund are understood as
developing country Parties to the Kyoto Protocol that are particularly vulnerable to the
adverse effects of climate change including
low-lying and other small island countries,
countries with low-lying coastal, arid and
semi-arid areas or areas liable to floods,
drought and desertification, and developing countries with fragile mountainous ecosystems.’
This is the same listing as in the UNFCCC preamble, but the additional word
‘including’ implies that the possibility exists
that countries not covered by the preamble could still be particularly vulnerable
and therefore eligible for funding from the
Adaptation Fund. An approach towards
the prioritisation among eligible Parties is
presented in Paragraph 16 of the Strategic
Priorities, Policies and Guidelines of the
Adaptation Fund. It lists seven criteria that
‘[t]he decision on the allocation of resources of the Adaptation Fund among eligible
Parties shall take into account.’ The first of
these criteria is ‘Level of vulnerability’; other
criteria include ‘Level of urgency and risks
arising from delay’ and ‘Adaptive capacity
to the adverse effects of climate change.’
While the Adaptation Fund Board follows the UNFCCC preamble, in 2007 Parties had put forward a different grouping
of ‘particularly vulnerable’ countries in the
Bali Action Plan. The Bali Action Plan lists
the issues Parties wish to see addressed in
an ‘agreed outcome’, which include:
‘1(c)Enhanced action on adaptation,
including, inter alia, consideration
of:
(i) International cooperation to
support urgent implementation of
adaptation actions … taking into
account the urgent and immediate
needs of developing countries that
are particularly vulnerable to the
adverse effects of climate change,
especially the least developed
countries and small island developing States, and further taking into
account the needs of countries in
Africa affected by drought, desertification and floods;
…
(iii) Disaster reduction strategies
and means to address loss and
damage associated with climate
change impacts in developing
countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of
climate change.’
The word ‘especially’ in Paragraph 1(c)(i)
does not exclude the possibility of support
to developing countries not listed here.
However, it implies that a certain priority be
given to the countries listed.
The Copenhagen Accord, formulated in
2009, was not the ‘agreed outcome’ the
Bali Action Plan set out to reach, and its
interpretation of ‘particularly vulnerable’ is
again different. The Copenhagen Accord
states that ‘[e]nhanced action and international cooperation on adaptation is urgently required … in developing countries,
especially in those that are particularly vulnerable, especially least developed countries, small island developing States and
Africa.’ Note the double use of the word
‘especially’ and the inclusion of all of Africa
(as opposed to countries in Africa affected
by drought, desertification and floods).
The Bali Action Plan established the Ad
Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWGLCA), which continued its work towards an
agreed outcome during four negotiation
sessions between Copenhagen and Cancún. Various interpretations of ‘particularly
vulnerable’ appeared in successive negotiating texts. The text presented for discussion
in Cancún in December 2010 includes options put forward by three different groups
of countries. The options still contain several square brackets, further highlighting
the lack of agreement.
Photo: © Kok Leng Yeo
Photo: © World Bank Photo Collection
The politics of establishing an index
The ambiguity presented in Box 1 reflects the lack of agreement among Parties on what it means to be particularly vulnerable. The idea of establishing a vulnerability index that
can provide an ‘objective’ answer is therefore increasingly
viewed with interest. However, a vulnerability index will
not resolve the ambiguity, because ‘vulnerability’ is not
a quantifiable attribute that can be objectively measured.
‘Vulnerability’ means different things to different people.
Human life, productive land, physical infrastructure and biological diversity are all vulnerable to climate change, but
there is no consensus on which are more or most important.
Is Vietnam more vulnerable than Vanuatu because more
people will be affected? Or is Vanuatu more vulnerable than
Vietnam because all of its land is exposed? Is Mexico more
vulnerable than Mali because more economic assets are at
risk? Or is Mali more vulnerable than Mexico because it
is already affected by drought? And if a country were considered more vulnerable, what would make it ‘particularly
vulnerable’?
relatively easy to construct a whole range of vulnerability
indices. And this is exactly what has been done over the
past ten years. Scientists have developed a series of different indices, each of which produced a different ranking of
vulnerable countries, based on different views and assumptions about what makes a country vulnerable. This experience
has shown that measuring vulnerability is not an exact science,
and that scientists can never provide an objectively ‘true’ answer to what is essentially a political question.
In principle it is relatively easy to construct a vulnerability index to rank Vietnam, Vanuatu, Mexico, Mali and all
other countries on a scale from, say, 1 to 10. In fact, it is
Photo: © global finland
This is not to say that measuring vulnerability is a futile exercise. However, a clear distinction must be made between the
positive and the normative steps involved in constructing a
vulnerability index. Scientists may well make an important
contribution (for example by proposing methods and collecting data), but the normative decisions are best left to negotiators. These decisions include which variables to consider,
what weights – if any – to attach to them, and where to set the
threshold beyond which countries are considered ‘particularly
vulnerable’. These decisions will greatly influence the ranking
produced by the index, and thereby the allocation of money
for adaptation.
This policy brief is based on the paper ‘Identifying
countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change: an academic or a
political challenge?’, which was published in Carbon
& Climate Law Review (2009, 3).
Conclusions
‘Vulnerability’ is a complex concept for which there is no
broadly agreed definition, and no common metric to express it.
As a result, it is technically difficult to compare countries with
different levels of vulnerability. In addition, due to the normative judgment required in the assessment of vulnerability, it is
also politically difficult to agree on a method that would allow
for such comparisons.
Despite current calls for the development of a vulnerability
index to guide the prioritisation of countries, it is unlikely that
Parties could reach agreement on any proposed index. Any resulting ranking is likely to be contested by countries which,
according to the ranking, are not particularly vulnerable and
therefore not prioritised for adaptation funding.
The ambiguity surrounding the questions of which countries
are particularly vulnerable and how to determine this is at the
heart of the political problem of prioritisation. This policy
brief does not offer a solution to this problem. Instead it emphasises that negotiators would be misguided to think they
could rely on external experts to develop a definitive, objective and unchallengeable method to rank countries according
to their vulnerability to climate change.
There is no objectivist ‘truth’ in vulnerability assessment; any
agreed approach will have to be the socially constructed outcome of a negotiation process, reflecting different and biased
interpretations of vulnerability. Scientists may well provide
input into this process, but eventually it requires normative
decisions on how vulnerability is defined, what constitutes
‘particular vulnerability’, and which countries can be designated as such. To make such decisions is the domain of politics
and should therefore be the responsibility of negotiators, not
of scientists.
Recommendations
• Negotiators need to be aware of the political decisions involved in constructing vulnerability indices.
They also need to understand how these decisions would influence the ranking of countries and thereby
the allocation of adaptation finance.
• Before considering any vulnerability index, negotiators must agree on which variables to consider, what
weights – if any – to attach to them, and where to set the threshold beyond which countries are considered ‘particularly vulnerable.’
Photo: © nattu/flickr
• Negotiators should avoid creating a situation where resource allocation decisions are informed by a
ranking of countries derived from a non-transparent assessment based on criteria not previously agreed
by Parties.
Published by:
Stockholm Environment Institute
Kräftriket 2B
SE -106 91 Stockholm
Sweden
+46 8 6747070
sei-international.org
2010
Author: Richard J.T. Klein,
[email protected]
Further Information:
SEI Head of Communications
Emma Lindberg
+46 73 4607458