IPCC_Managing Risks of Extreme Events.pdf - Climate Access

Chapter 1Climate Change: New Dimensions in Disaster Risk, Exposure, Vulnerability, and ResilienceExecutive SummaryDisaster signifies extreme impacts suffered when hazardous physical events interact with vulnerable socialconditions to severely alter the normal functioning of a community or a society (high confidence). Socialvulnerability and exposure are key determinants of disaster risk and help explain why non-extreme physical eventsand chronic hazards can also lead to extreme impacts and disasters, while some extreme events do not. Extremeimpacts on human, ecological, or physical systems derive from individual extreme or non-extreme events, or acompounding of events or their impacts (for example, drought creating the conditions for wildfire, followed by heavyrain leading to landslides and soil erosion). [1.1.2.1, 1.1.2.3, 1.2.3.1, 1.3]Management strategies based on the reduction of everyday or chronic risk factors and on the reduction ofrisk associated with non-extreme events, as opposed to strategies based solely on the exceptional orextreme, provide a mechanism that facilitates the reduction of disaster risk and the preparation for andresponse to extremes and disasters (high confidence). Effective adaptation to climate change requires anunderstanding of the diverse ways in which social processes and development pathways shape disaster risk. Disasterrisk is often causally related to ongoing, chronic, or persistent environmental, economic, or social risk factors. [1.1.2.2,1.1.3, 1.1.4.1, 1.3.2]Development practice, policy, and outcomes are critical to shaping disaster risk (high confidence). Disasterrisk may be increased by shortcomings in development. Reductions in the rate of depletion of ecosystem services,improvements in urban land use and territorial organization processes, the strengthening of rural livelihoods, andgeneral and specific advances in urban and rural governance advance the composite agenda of poverty reduction,disaster risk reduction, and adaptation to climate change. [1.1.2.1, 1.1.2.2, 1.1.3, 1.3.2, 1.3.3]Climate change will pose added challenges for the appropriate allocation of efforts to manage disasterrisk (high confidence). The potential for changes in all characteristics of climate will complicate the evaluation,communication, and management of the resulting risk. [1.1.3.1, 1.1.3.2, 1.2.2.2, 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.4.3]Risk assessment is one starting point, within the broader risk governance framework, for adaptation toclimate change and disaster risk reduction and transfer (high confidence). The assessment and analysis processmay employ a variety of tools according to management context, access to data and technology, and stakeholdersinvolved. These tools will vary from formalized probabilistic risk analysis to local level, participatory risk and contextanalysis methodologies. [1.3, 1.3.1.2, 1.3.3, Box 1-2]Risk assessment encounters difficulties in estimating the likelihood and magnitude of extreme events andtheir impacts (high confidence). Furthermore, among individual stakeholders and groups, perceptions of risk aredriven by psychological and cultural factors, values, and beliefs. Effective risk communication requires exchanging,sharing, and integrating knowledge about climate-related risks among all stakeholder groups. [Box 1-1, 1.1.4.1,1.2.2.1, 1.3.1.1, 1.3.1.2, Box 1-2, Box 1-3, 1.4.2]Management of the risk associated with climate extremes, extreme impacts, and disasters benefits froman integrated systems approach, as opposed to separately managing individual types of risk or risk inparticular locations (high confidence). Effective risk management generally involves a portfolio of actions toreduce and transfer risk and to respond to events and disasters, as opposed to a singular focus on any one action ortype of action. [1.1.2.2, 1.1.4.1, 1.3, 1.3.3, 1.4.2]Learning is central to adaptation to climate change. Furthermore, the concepts, goals, and processes ofadaptation share much in common with disaster risk management, particularly its disaster risk reductioncomponent (high confidence). Disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change offer frameworks for, andexamples of, advanced learning processes that may help reduce or avoid barriers that undermine planned adaptationefforts or lead to implementation of maladaptive measures. Due to the deep uncertainty, dynamic complexity, and27