Toward an Inventory of the Impacts of Human-Induced Climate Change

Abstract

Capsule: Currently no systematic assessment of loss and damage due to climate change exists. Towards such an inventory we present a transparent way to ascertain the quality of evidence for such assessments. Current levels of global warming (Haustein et al. 2017) have already intensified heatwaves, droughts and floods, with many recent events exhibiting evidence of being exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change (e.g., Herring et al. 2018, 2016). Recent improvements in understanding demonstrate that half a degree of additional warming will have further severe impacts (Masson-Delmotte et al. 2018). In the context of this rapid and damaging change, there is a clear need to quantify and address both the losses and damages from impacts we have not adapted to today, as well as to adapt to those that will emerge in the next few decades. To do this, it is essential to understand the impacts of man-made climate change on the scales that climate adaptation decisions are made. Drivers of disasters, ultimately responsible for much loss and damage, are unfolding in an ever-changing socio-economic context, which also alters exposure and vulnerability. While various case studies exist (discussed below), there is to date no comprehensive or comparable database quantifying anthropogenic contributions to climate change loss and damage. We suggest that this needs to change.

Deciphering Impacts and Human Responses to a Changing Climate in East Africa

“…Collectively, our results are consistent with evidence on contextual factors contributing to environment-related migration (Groth et al, 2020;Hoffmann et al, 2020) and expand the scope of findings by investigating links to anthropogenic climate change. While the lack of contextual data is often driven by availability, such limitations also exist for climate data (Otto et al, 2020). However, the relatively random or even unjustified choice of climate and weather data used in the reviewed case studies is still to question.…”

“…Despite recent advancements, empirical evidence on the proportional impacts of a changing climate on human mobility is scant and currently thin on quantitative assessment (Abel et al, 2019;Cattaneo et al, 2019;Groth et al, 2020). Crucially, comprehensive evidence is missing for places vulnerable to a changing climate and potentially hot-spots of increasing hazards such as East Africa (Otto et al, 2020).…”

Filling the evidentiary gap in climate litigation

“…Finally, in common with many types of expert evidence, attribution findings are question-dependant 17 and influenced by the event definition. Contrasting approaches to framing attribution questions produce quantitatively differing results, while remaining scientifically valid 18 .…”

“…Sources of uncertainty include limitations in model representations of the climate system and climatic observations for model evaluation. Uncertainty is assessed based on physical understanding of atmospheric processes and their representation in models, agreement between models and observations, and the quality of available evidence 17 .…”

Implicit Sustainable Development Theories Obscure Disproportionate Impacts from Climate-related Extreme Events: Example from Hurricane Michael and Housing Losses on Florida’s Forgotten Coast

“…This leads some of its proponents to develop extensive lists of different types of impacts from CC that are supposedly incommensurable (e.g., Tschakert et al, 2019). How best to handle measurement and monitoring of heterogeneous impacts from CC remains an important topic of contention in loss and damage circles, though it is essential if a catalogue of climate-related harm is ever to materialize (Otto et al, 2020). The current study, as explained below, maintains a focus on comparing the two main approaches; however, when discussing the advantages of the capabilities approach to Human Development in particular, we argue that it also provides a satisfactory resolution to the on-going "wishlist" debate over how best to conceptualize, measure and ultimately address the heterogeneous impacts from CC.…”