Climate and Social Vulnerability: Analytics of Cause and Responsibility

Adaptation is forward looking. But we need to look back at the causes of fragility to move toward security. Causal analysis of vulnerability aims to identify the roots of crises so that transformative solutions might be found. Yet, root-cause analysis is absent from most climate-response assessments. Framings for climate-change risk analysis often locate causality in hazards while attributing some causal weight to proximate social variables such as poverty or lack of capacity. They rarely ask why capacity is lacking, assets are inadequate or social protections are absent or fail. This talk frames vulnerability and security as matters of access to assets and social protections. Assets and social protections each have their own context-contingent causal chains. A key recursive element in those causal chains is the ability—means and powers—of vulnerable people to influence the political economy that shapes their assets and social protections. Vulnerability is, as Sen rightly observed, linked to the lack of freedom—the freedom to influence the political economy that shapes entitlements. This talk would like to explore why broader political-economic causes have such a difficult time entering into climate impact models—and thus solutions to vulnerability, that is various policies called adaptation, remain relatively shallow.