Ways In and Out of Vulnerability to Climate Change: Abandoning the Mubarak Project in the Northern Nile Delta, Egypt

Abstract

Climate change is already exerting significant pressure on humanity, but some people have the resources to cope, while others do not. What, then, determines vulnerability to climate change? This article presents a case study of one site of vulnerability in Egypt, known as the Mubarak Project villages on the shores of the Mediterranean. The soil of these villages is now undergoing rapid salinization, forcing farmers to apply sand to “elevate” their fields above the rising salty water table—but not all farmers can afford to buy the requisite sand. Accumulation by dispossession under the Mubarak regime has pushed some people towards the frontline of climate change, while at the same time denying them the resources to stay there. Using our case, we explore the connection between accumulation by dispossession and vulnerability to climate change and ask if an end to the former could reduce the latter in Egypt.

Vulnerability and resistance to neoliberal environmental changes: An assessment of agriculture and forestry in the Biobio region of Chile (1974–2014)

“…land uses changes and water scarcity) and the differential coping capacities of those involved in chains of production and exchange. Put plainly, it means the production of winners and losers at all scales (Harvey, 2005;Heynen et al, 2007;Smith, 2008;Leichenko and O'Brien, 2008: 37;Peet et al, 2011;Malm and Esmailian, 2012;Eakin et al, 2013).…”

“…These approaches elucidate the political dimensions of change processes, which frequently are not addressed by the biophysical or geophysical literatures concerning vulnerability (Malm and Esmailian, 2012;Basset and Fogelman, 2013).…”

“…As conceptualized by Leichenko and O'Brien, the double exposures framework proposes a mode for analyzing these interrelated processes jointly, drawing from theoretical perspectives ranging from biophysical discourses to political ecology approaches (Leichenko and O'Brien, 2008;Leichenko et al, 2010). We analyze the Biobio case under the critical and transformative lens of political ecology, which takes into account biophysical as well as social and political factors that produce both regional vulnerability and efforts to contest such vulnerabilities Castree, 2008;Robbins, 2012;Malm and Esmailian, 2012;Martinez-Alier, 2013;Adnan, 2013;Basset and Fogelman, 2013).…”

A social justice framing of climate change discourse and policy: Adaptation, resilience and vulnerability in a Jamaican agricultural landscape

“…Such an approach calls attention to poverty, inequality, and the broader political economy of markets and institutions in creating an uneven landscape of entitlements. This suggests a need to not only measure vulnerability but also to account for its uneven production, which leads to important questions regarding political and economic inequality (Malm and Esmailian, 2013). In similar fashion, Holland (2008Holland ( , 2012 has developed the 'capabilities approach' of Martha Nussbaum, which attempts to define the minimum requirements for ''a life in which the basic conditions of human flourishing are available'' (Holland, 2012: 152).…”

The geography of peace: Egyptian land reclamation and agri-cultural cooperation with Israel

“…However, without a view on the particularities of the landscape, we overlook how the quality of the soil in some of these areas has deteriorated and people have become impoverished (Malm and Esmailian 2012).…”