Affiliation:
1. Joshua W. Busby is an assistant professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and is affiliated with the Climate Change and African Political Stability program (CCAPS) at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Busby served as an outside reviewer of the National Intelligence Council's assessment of climate change and national security and has written on the subject for the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings...
2. Todd G. Smith is a Ph.D. student at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and a research assistant with the CCAPS program. He holds a JD from Emory University and a master's of public affairs from the University of Texas at Austin.
3. Kaiba L. White is a former research associate with the CCAPS program. She holds a master's degree in urban and environmental policy and planning from Tufts University.
4. Shawn M. Strange was a geographic information system consultant with the CCAPS project and holds a master's degree in community and regional planning from the University of Texas at Austin.
Abstract
Many experts argue that climate change will exacerbate the severity and number of extreme weather events. Such climate-related hazards will be important security concerns and sources of vulnerability in the future regardless of whether they contribute to conflict. This will be particularly true where these hazards put large numbers of people at risk of death, requiring the diversion of either domestic or foreign military assets to provide humanitarian relief. Vulnerability to extreme weather, however, is only partially a function of physical exposure. Poor, marginalized communities that lack access to infrastructure and services, that have minimal education and poor health care, and that exist in countries with poor governance are likely to be among the most vulnerable. Given its dependence on rainfed agriculture and its low adaptive capacity, Africa is thought to be among the most vulnerable continents to climate change. That vulnerability, however, is not uniformly distributed. Indicators of vulnerability within Africa include the historic incidence of climate-related hazards, population density, household and community resilience, and governance and political violence. Among the places in Africa most vulnerable to the security consequences of climate change are parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and South Sudan.
Subject
Law,Political Science and International Relations,Sociology and Political Science
Cited by
66 articles.
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