W. Neil Adger | |
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| Born | 1964 (age 59–60) |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh Wye College, University of London University of East Anglia |
| Spouse | Katrina Brown |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Exeter |
| Thesis | Social vulnerability to climate change in Vietnam (1998) |
| Doctoral advisor | Kerry Turner and Mick Kelly [1] |
| Website | Professor Neil Adger |
William Neil Adger (born 1964) is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Exeter. [2]
Neil Adger is Northern Irish, born in Ballymena. [3] He was educated at the University of Edinburgh (MA Economics), Wye College, University of London (MSc Agricultural Economics) and the University of East Anglia (PhD, 1998). [4]
Adger, an environmental economist by training, has been a significant contributor to debates about how social conditions and culture shape our vulnerability to climate change and our ability to adapt to it, with over 140,000 citations as of 2024. [5] He has largely worked on group projects synthesizing cases and data, but has also worked closely on coastal vulnerability and migration resulting from climate change in Vietnam and Bangladesh. [6]
He has been a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, contributing significantly to reports in 2001 and 2007. [7]
A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying, quantifying, and prioritizing the vulnerabilities in a system. Examples of systems for which vulnerability assessments are performed include, but are not limited to, information technology systems, energy supply systems, water supply systems, transportation systems, and communication systems. Such assessments may be conducted on behalf of a range of different organizations, from small businesses up to large regional infrastructures. Vulnerability from the perspective of disaster management means assessing the threats from potential hazards to the population and to infrastructure. It may be conducted in the political, social, economic or environmental fields.
Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall warming trend, changes to precipitation patterns, and more extreme weather. As the climate changes it impacts the natural environment with effects such as more intense forest fires, thawing permafrost, and desertification. These changes impact ecosystems and societies, and can become irreversible once tipping points are crossed. Climate activists are engaged in a range of activities around the world that seek to ameliorate these issues or prevent them from happening.
An economic analysis of climate change uses economic tools and models to calculate the magnitude and distribution of damages caused by climate change. It can also give guidance for the best policies for mitigation and adaptation to climate change from an economic perspective. There are many economic models and frameworks. For example, in a cost–benefit analysis, the trade offs between climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation are made explicit. For this kind of analysis, integrated assessment models (IAMs) are useful. Those models link main features of society and economy with the biosphere and atmosphere into one modelling framework. The total economic impacts from climate change are difficult to estimate. In general, they increase the more the global surface temperature increases.
Climate change adaptation is the process of adjusting to the effects of climate change. These can be both current or expected impacts. Adaptation aims to moderate or avoid harm for people, and is usually done alongside climate change mitigation. It also aims to exploit opportunities. Humans may also intervene to help adjustment for natural systems. There are many adaptation strategies or options. They can help manage impacts and risks to people and nature. The four types of adaptation actions are infrastructural, institutional, behavioural and nature-based options. Some examples of these are building seawalls or inland flood defenses, providing new insurance schemes, changing crop planting times or varieties, and installing green roofs or green spaces. Adaptation can be reactive or proactive.
Adaptive capacity relates to the capacity of systems, institutions, humans and other organisms to adjust to potential damage, to take advantage of opportunities, or to respond to consequences. In the context of ecosystems, adaptive capacity is determined by genetic diversity of species, biodiversity of particular ecosystems in specific landscapes or biome regions. In the context of coupled socio-ecological social systems, adaptive capacity is commonly associated with the following characteristics: Firstly, the ability of institutions and networks to learn, and store knowledge and experience. Secondly, the creative flexibility in decision making, transitioning and problem solving. And thirdly, the existence of power structures that are responsive and consider the needs of all stakeholders.
The Burtoni Award was created in 2003 by a group of leading experts and policy makers in the field of climate change. It is named for the Canadian science pioneer Ian Burton. Its purpose is to recognize outstanding contributions to the science of adaptation to climate change. The award is named after the first recipient of the award, Ian Burton, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto and a pioneer in the field of adaptation to climate change and extreme events and disasters. Ian has contributed to three assessment reports of the IPCC and the recent Special Report on Extremes (SREX).
Climate risk is the potential for problems for societies or ecosystems from the impacts of climate change. The assessment of climate risk is based on formal analysis of the consequences, likelihoods and responses to these impacts. Societal constraints can also shape adaptation options. There are different values and preferences around risk, resulting in differences of risk perception.
In conservation biology, susceptibility is the extent to which an organism or ecological community would suffer from a threatening process or factor if exposed, without regard to the likelihood of exposure. It should not be confused with vulnerability, which takes into account both the effect of exposure and the likelihood of exposure.
Christopher B. Field is an American scientist and researcher, who has contributed to the field of climate change. The author of more than 200 scientific publications, Field's research emphasizes impacts of climate change, from the molecular to the global scale. His work includes major field experiments on responses of California grassland to multi-factor global change, integrative studies on the global carbon cycle, and assessments of impacts of climate change on agriculture. Field's work with models includes studies on the global distribution of carbon sources and sinks, and studies on environmental consequences of expanding biomass energy.
Climate change and poverty are deeply intertwined because climate change disproportionally affects poor people in low-income communities and developing countries around the world. The impoverished have a higher chance of experiencing the ill-effects of climate change due to the increased exposure and vulnerability. Vulnerability represents the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change including climate variability and extremes.
Climate change affects men and women differently. Climate change and gender examines how men and women access and use resources that are impacted by climate change and how they experience the resulting impacts. It examines how gender roles and cultural norms influence the ability of men and women to respond to climate change, and how women's and men's roles can be better integrated into climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. It also considers how climate change intersects with other socioeconomic challenges, such as poverty, access to resources, migration, and cultural identity. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to ensure that climate change policies and initiatives are equitable, and that both women and men benefit from them. Climate change increases gender inequality, reduces women's ability to be financially independent, and has an overall negative impact on the social and political rights of women, especially in economies that are heavily based on agriculture. In many cases, gender inequality means that women are more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. This is due to gender roles, particularly in the developing world, which means that women are often dependent on the natural environment for subsistence and income. By further limiting women's already constrained access to physical, social, political, and fiscal resources, climate change often burdens women more than men and can magnify existing gender inequality.
Thomas F. Stocker is a Swiss climate scientist.
Climate resilience is a concept to describe how well people or ecosystems are prepared to bounce back from certain climate hazard events. The formal definition of the term is the "capacity of social, economic and ecosystems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance". For example, climate resilience can be the ability to recover from climate-related shocks such as floods and droughts. Different actions can increase climate resilience of communities and ecosystems to help them cope. They can help to keep systems working in the face of external forces. For example, building a seawall to protect a coastal community from flooding might help maintain existing ways of life there.
The effects of climate change on small island countries are affecting people in coastal areas through sea level rise, increasing heavy rain events, tropical cyclones and storm surges. These effects of climate change threaten the existence of many island countries, their peoples and cultures. They also alter ecosystems and natural environments in those countries. Small island developing states (SIDS) are a heterogenous group of countries but many of them are particularly at risk to climate change. Those countries have been quite vocal in calling attention to the challenges they face from climate change. For example, the Maldives and nations of the Caribbean and Pacific Islands are already experiencing considerable impacts of climate change. It is critical for them to implement climate change adaptation measures fast.
Climate change vulnerability is a concept that describes how strongly people or ecosystems are likely to be affected by climate change. Its formal definition is the "propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected" by climate change. It can apply to humans and also to natural systems. Issues around the capacity to cope and adapt are also part of this concept. Vulnerability is a component of climate risk. It differs within communities and also across societies, regions, and countries. It can increase or decrease over time. Vulnerability is generally a bigger problem for people in low-income countries than for those in high-income countries.
Climate migration is a subset of climate-related mobility that refers to movement driven by the impact of sudden or gradual climate-exacerbated disasters, such as "abnormally heavy rainfalls, prolonged droughts, desertification, environmental degradation, or sea-level rise and cyclones". Gradual shifts in the environment tend to impact more people than sudden disasters. The majority of climate migrants move internally within their own countries, though a smaller number of climate-displaced people also move across national borders.
Koko Warner is a climate change expert who specializes in human migration and displacement and who holds a PhD in economics from the University of Vienna. In 2014, the International Council for Science named Warner as one of the top 20 women making contributions to climate change debate.
Robert Nicholls is currently the Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and a professor of climate adaptation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom.
Anita Barbara Wreford is a New Zealand applied economist, and is a full professor at Lincoln University, specialising in climate change adaptation.
Maria Carmen de Mello Lemos is Professor of Environment and Sustainability and co-director of the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Senior Policy Scholar at the Udall Center for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Lemos is an established climate policy analyst whose research focuses primarily on environmental public policymaking in Latin America and the US, especially related to climate change adaptation and adaptive capacity building.
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