Global environmental change II: Political economies of vulnerability to climate change

Abstract

Though rarely described as such, vulnerability to climate change is fundamentally a matter of political economy. This progress report provides a reading of contemporary research on vulnerability to climate change through a political economic lens. It interprets the research as explaining the interplay between ideas about vulnerability, the institutions that create vulnerability, and those actors with interests in vulnerability. It highlights research that critiques the idea of vulnerability, and that demonstrates the agency of those at risk as they navigate the intersecting, multi-scalar and teleconnected institutions that shape their choices in adapting to climate change. The report also highlights research that is tracking the way powerful institutions and interests that create vulnerability are themselves adapting by appropriating the cause of the vulnerable, depoliticising the causes of vulnerability, and promoting innovations in finance and markets as solutions. In these ways, political and economic institutions are sustaining themselves and capitalising on the opportunities presented by climate change at the expense of those most at risk.