Fieldwork in the Kiribati archipelago (South Pacific) on the issues of vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change

Abstract

The vulnerability issue is relevant for drawing up a panorama of the weaknesses and the strengths of a territory in face of natural hazards, at the crossroads of various determinants (spatial configuration, societal cohesion, environmental sensitivity, economic diversification, territorial coherence and level of development). In parallel, we argue that because of the numerous and partly irreducible climatic and anthropogenic uncertainties, it remains very speculative to try to directly measure the level of vulnerability of a specific territory to climate change. Our hypothesis is rather that monitoring the evolution of this territory’s current level of vulnerability is a better option than trying to quantifying how much it will be vulnerable in 2050 or 2100. In this view, the challenge consists in building tools which are usable by local decision-makers and stakeholders because they are the ones will be responsible for the monitoring approach.