Double exposure: assessing the impacts of climate change within the context of economic globalization
Section snippets
Global processes
Climate change is emerging as one of the most challenging problems facing the world in the 21st century. Scientists and policy makers have become embroiled in extensive debates about potential changes brought about by an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, along with strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Assessments of the global and regional impacts of climate change have formed the cornerstone for climate policy debates. Underlying these debates is the recognition that
Winners and losers
The idea of winners and losers has been referred to frequently in discussions of both climate change impacts and the consequences of globalization. Winners are considered those countries, regions or social groups that are likely to benefit from the ongoing processes of climate change or globalization, while losers are those that are disadvantaged by the processes and likely to experience negative consequences. The notion of winners and losers is contentious in both arenas, as it undermines any
Climate change
There is a growing consensus that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to a change in the climate, and that such trends will continue into the future unless dramatic mitigation measures are adopted (Houghton et al., 1996). As discussed above, there is a broad recognition that there will be both winners and losers associated with climate change. Although there is a large amount of uncertainty associated with future climate scenarios, it is quite clear that the distribution of
Economic globalization
Economic globalization describes a set of processes whereby production and consumption activities shift from the local or national scale to the global scale. Globalization is manifest through a number of interrelated changes, including rising levels of international trade, foreign investment, and multinational firm activity. It is also manifest through falling political barriers to trade and investment, integration of global financial markets, integration of production activities across
Double exposure
Both climate change and economic globalization are ongoing processes with uneven impacts, and both include implicit winners and losers. Nevertheless, discussions of winners and losers rarely take into account the fact that both processes are occurring simultaneously. To address this, we introduce the concept of double exposure. Double exposure refers to cases where a particular region, sector, ecosystem or social group is confronted by the impacts of both climate change and economic
Issues and questions for future research
The examples above illustrate how the concept of “double exposure” can be approached from various perspectives. Climate change is likely to have differential impacts among regions, sectors, social groups and ecosystems. In some cases, the changes will be beneficial, whereas in other cases, they will cause major economic, social, and environmental disruptions. Likewise, as certain regions, sectors or social groups take advantage of opportunities associated with globalization, others are left out
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