IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/prodev/v3y2003i3p179-195.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adaptation to climate change in the developing world

Author

Listed:
  • W. Neil Adger

    (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, CSERGE, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK, n.adger@uea.ac.uk)

  • Saleemul Huq

    (International Institute for Environment and Development, London, UK)

  • Katrina Brown

    (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK)

  • Declan Conway

    (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, UK)

  • Mike Hulme

    (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK)

Abstract

The world’s climate is changing and will continue to change into the coming century at rates projected to be unprecedented in recent human history. The risks associated with these changes are real but highly uncertain. Societal vulnerability to the risks associated with climate change may exacerbate ongoing social and economic challenges, particularly for those parts of societies dependent on resources that are sensitive to changes in climate. Risks are apparent in agriculture, fisheries and many other components that constitute the livelihood of rural populations in developing countries. In this paper we explore the nature of risk and vulnerability in the context of climate change and review the evidence on present-day adaptation in developing countries and on coordinated international action on future adaptation. We argue that all societies are fundamentally adaptive and there are many situations in the past where societies have adapted to changes in climate and to similar risks. But some sectors are more sensitive and some groups in society more vulnerable to the risks posed by climate change than others. Yet all societies need to enhance their adaptive capacity to face both present and future climate change outside their experienced coping range. The challenges of climate change for development are in the present. Observed climate change, present-day climate variability and future expectations of change are changing the course of development strategies - development agencies and governments are now planning for this adaptation challenge. The primary challenge, therefore, posed at both the scale of local natural resource management and at the scale of international agreements and actions, is to promote adaptive capacity in the context of competing sustainable development objectives.

Suggested Citation

  • W. Neil Adger & Saleemul Huq & Katrina Brown & Declan Conway & Mike Hulme, 2003. "Adaptation to climate change in the developing world," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 3(3), pages 179-195, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:prodev:v:3:y:2003:i:3:p:179-195
    DOI: 10.1191/1464993403ps060oa
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1191/1464993403ps060oa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1191/1464993403ps060oa?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen H. Schneider, 2001. "What is 'dangerous' climate change?," Nature, Nature, vol. 411(6833), pages 17-19, May.
    2. Daanish Mustafa, 1998. "Structural Causes of Vulnerability to Flood Hazard in Pakistan," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 74(3), pages 289-305, July.
    3. Robert Kates, 2000. "Cautionary Tales: Adaptation and the Global Poor," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 5-17, April.
    4. Marcia Muchagata & Katrina Brown, 2000. "Colonist farmers' perceptions of fertility and the frontier environment in eastern Amazonia," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 17(4), pages 371-384, December.
    5. W. Adger & P. Kelly, 1999. "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and the Architecture of Entitlements," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 253-266, September.
    6. Karp, Larry, 2004. "The Clean Development Mechanism and Its Controversies," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt7h93z3b9, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    7. Saleemul Huq, 2002. "The Bonn-Marrakech agreements on funding," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2-3), pages 243-246, September.
    8. Charlotte Benson & Edward Clay, 1998. "Drought and Sub-Saharan African Economies," World Bank Publications - Reports 9884, The World Bank Group.
    9. Mortimore,Michael, 1998. "Roots in the African Dust," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521451734, October.
    10. Mortimore,Michael, 1998. "Roots in the African Dust," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521457859, October.
    11. Agrawal, Arun, 2001. "Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(10), pages 1649-1672, October.
    12. Marten Scheffer & Steve Carpenter & Jonathan A. Foley & Carl Folke & Brian Walker, 2001. "Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems," Nature, Nature, vol. 413(6856), pages 591-596, October.
    13. Karp, Larry & Liu, Xuemei, 2000. "The Clean Development Mechanism and its Controversies," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt9739314q, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    14. John Connell & Dennis Conway, 2000. "Migration and remittances in island microstates: a comparative perspective on the South Pacific and the Caribbean," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 52-78, March.
    15. Neil Adger, W., 1999. "Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 249-269, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fahad, Shah & Wang, Jianling, 2018. "Farmers’ risk perception, vulnerability, and adaptation to climate change in rural Pakistan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 301-309.
    2. Shreekant Gupta, 2010. "Incentive Based Approaches for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emmissions : Issues And Prospects for India," Working Papers id:2638, eSocialSciences.
    3. Shreekant Gupta, 2000. "Incentive-Based Approaches for Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Issues and Prospects for India," Working papers 85, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    4. W.Neil Adger, 2001. "Scales of governance and environmental justice for adaptation and mitigation of climate change," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(7), pages 921-931.
    5. Shreekant Gupta, 2003. "Implementing Kyoto-type Flexibility Mechanisms for India: Issues and Prospects," Working papers 117, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    6. Valente, Donatella & Miglietta, Pier Paolo & Porrini, Donatella & Pasimeni, Maria Rita & Zurlini, Giovanni & Petrosillo, Irene, 2019. "A first analysis on the need to integrate ecological aspects into financial insurance," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 392(C), pages 117-127.
    7. Jinshan Zhu, 2017. "Assessing China’s price review policy on Clean Development Mechanism projects," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 285-316, April.
    8. Ajay Chhibber & Rachid Laajaj, 2011. "Securing Against Natural Disasters: Better Preparedness and Better Development," Chapters, in: George Mavrotas (ed.), Security and Development, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Jones, Lindsey & d'Errico, Marco, 2019. "Whose resilience matters? Like-for-like comparison of objective and subjective evaluations of resilience," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    10. Delphine Boutin, 2014. "Climate vulnerability, communities' resilience and child labour," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(4), pages 625-638.
    11. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.
    12. Barnett, Jon, 2001. "Adapting to Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: The Problem of Uncertainty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 977-993, June.
    13. Jia Xu & Makoto Takahashi, 2021. "Progressing vulnerability of the immigrants in an urbanizing village in coastal China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 8012-8026, May.
    14. Ahmad Taki & Viet Ha Xuan Doan, 2022. "A New Framework for Sustainable Resilient Houses on the Coastal Areas of Khanh Hoa, Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-31, June.
    15. Williamson, Tim & Hesseln, Hayley & Johnston, Mark, 2012. "Adaptive capacity deficits and adaptive capacity of economic systems in climate change vulnerability assessment," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 160-166.
    16. Arouri, Mohamed & Nguyen, Cuong & Youssef, Adel Ben, 2015. "Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 59-77.
    17. Hochachka, Gail, 2021. "Integrating the four faces of climate change adaptation: Towards transformative change in Guatemalan coffee communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    18. Moritz, Mark, 2008. "Competing Paradigms in Pastoral Development? A Perspective from the Far North of Cameroon," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2243-2254, November.
    19. Danielle Emma Johnson & Karen Fisher & Meg Parsons, 2022. "Diversifying Indigenous Vulnerability and Adaptation: An Intersectional Reading of Māori Women’s Experiences of Health, Wellbeing, and Climate Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-40, May.
    20. Piya, Luni & Maharjan, Keshav Lall & Joshi, Niraj Prakash, 2012. "Vulnerability of rural households to climate change and extremes: Analysis of Chepang households in the Mid-Hills of Nepal," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126191, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:prodev:v:3:y:2003:i:3:p:179-195. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.