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Effects of Educational Attainment on Climate Risk Vulnerability

In the context of still uncertain specific effects of climate change in specific locations, this paper examines whether education significantly increases coping capacity with regard to particular climatic changes, and whether it improves the resilience of people to climate risks in general. Our hypothesis is that investment in universal primary and secondary education around the world is the most effective strategy for preparing to cope with the still uncertain dangers associated with future climate. The empirical evidence presented for a cross-country time series of factors associated with past natural disaster fatalities since 1980 in 125 countries confirms this overriding importance of education in reducing impacts. We also present new projections of populations by age, sex, and level of educational attainment to 2050, thus providing an appropriate tool for anticipating societies' future adaptive capacities based on alternative education scenarios associated with different policies. (authors' abstract)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:4747
Date January 2013
CreatorsStriessnig, Erich, Lutz, Wolfgang, Patt, Anthony
PublisherThe Resilience Alliance
Source SetsWirtschaftsuniversität Wien
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, PeerReviewed
Formatapplication/pdf
Relationhttp://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-05252-180116, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/about/policies.php#openaccess, http://epub.wu.ac.at/4747/

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