<p>The objective of this thesis is to investigate how of the concepts of adaptation and vulnerability are defined in IPCC’s third assessment report (TAR) with specific focus on IPCC’s response to the critique from South. I have achieved this by doing a text analysis of the content in TAR. My point of departure was in the position of South and there critiques on the climate change policy. I have divided the objective into different research question where I focus on the definition of vulnerability, the determining factors of adaptive capacity, if there is a difference in vulnerability between and within regions and whether focus is on adaptation or mitigation in TAR. There are two definitions of vulnerability in TAR. One is by Brooks (2003) referred as biophysical and the other as social vulnerability. Which one the authors in the report refer to is not put out which cause confusion. In earlier assessments are the biophysical approach more common than the social. In TAR is the use of vulnerability in terms of social conditions more common than the biophysical. This is an improvement since this definition is necessary to get a greater focus on the need for immediate adaptation, in South particularly. It was somewhat problematic to determine whether the adaptive capacity only on the level of the system was considered in TAR or also exogenous factors, which affect the capacity of the system, was included in the definition. In some sense exogenous factors have been considered however it is not much reflection over this. In the report there is a consensus that the vulnerability differs between regions. However there is not much research conducted in developing countries. Also in the issue of concentration on adaptation or mitigation the problem is that there is not enough research from developing countries. Despite this, this assessment report has more focus on adaptation than the other ones. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:liu-5372 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | von Post, Sofia |
| Publisher | Linköping University, Department of Water and Environmental Studies, Tema vatten i natur och samhälle |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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