According to reports from international institutions such as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank, the impacts of climate change will continue affecting the Least Developed Countries (LDC) for the coming years and the less resilient countries, defined by the climate vulnerability index (CVI), will be the most vulnerable. The CVI relates the Exposure and Adaptive Capacity for a specific Hazard, offering feasible supports for decision-makers in identifying country-specific needs to adapt to climate change. However, even with this scenario, the LDCs are still unable to cope with the impact of extreme events. Therefore, the main question is, which part of Adaptive Capacity needs more effort to deal with extreme weather events? To address this issue, this paper discusses the governance role in the CVI definition, suggesting an alternative approach to assess climate vulnerability. Overall, we propose a tool, taking into account four main components: Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptive Capacity, and Governance. In this case, the Governance component represents organizations, policies, and qualified human resources that could improve the planning and management of a specific system. More specifically, we explicitly considered the Governance component in the climate vulnerability function by adding specific indicators. As a study case, we consider Mozambique, a highly vulnerable country to the adverse impact of climate change. The results have shown that by adding the Governance component to assess climate vulnerability, the function becomes more sensitive. In conclusion, Governance is accepted as a powerful component in the CVI definition.
Buchir, LMST; Detzel, DHM
The role of the governance on the climate vulnerability index definition in Mozambique
Geojournal