Introduction
Climate change is the most disturbing subject among the many debatable issues in the contemporary world. While the third world nations strongly hold that climate is changing due to the development activities of the developed nations, the developed nations use scientific theories to point to natural causes of the vice. Those disagreements have resulted into vulnerability, poor adaption, and inequality to the third world nations.
Climatic change seems to be a two-fold problem. By looking into it from geographical and scientific dimension, it is easy to agree with the developed nations that it is caused by natural causes that are unknown to man.
These natural reasons are similar to the historical belief of continental drifts where climatic conditions changed as the movement of the continental blocks progressed. For instance, why is it that the Sahara desert is increasing downwards while the southern arctic region is increasing upwards as indicated by Ford and Ford?1That trend is a clear indication of an upward movement of the continents.
This paper looks into vulnerability of world countries to climate change and adaptation in relation to economic inequity could progress with the existing reluctance of developing nations to take the matter seriously
On the other hand, climatic conditions are vulnerable to artificial disturbances. Hence, the strong stand by the third world countries could be true and a matter that should be addressed. Developed world countries are heavily industrialized and thus they emit a lot of heat into the atmosphere.
In addition, large amount of gases are emitted to the atmosphere. The combination of the two industrial emissions leads to an increase in the atmospheric temperatures. However, it is important to note that the weather is heavily determined by atmospheric temperatures at any given time. Science indicates that weather patterns change with the movement of the earth as the sun changes its position.
Increased temperatures cause winds as air from cold temperate zones moves to replace the less dense hot air molecules in the hot temperate zones in different parts of the world. In addition, air movements determine the direction of rain as clouds are moved toward the direction of the wind.
That scientific theory of weather patterns explains why it is possible to interfere with climatic conditions in the world. Hence, the developing world countries could be true to their conviction.
Vulnerability to Climatic Changes
Climate is a key determinant of economic growth and development in a majority of the third world countries in the world today. For instance, a community that has relied on agricultural activities for centuries is more vulnerable to the climatic changes than the one that has relied on mining activities. Most communities in the third world nations depend on agricultural activities for their livelihood.
For instance, in an African country like Uganda, a majority of the population are farmers who rely on animal and crop farming. In addition, they rely on natural weather patterns rather than utilizing agricultural technology as is the case in developed countries like Israel.
In the case of dry weather, a majority of the population in Uganda is likely to suffer from malnutrition and starvation as their farms will have dried up resulting to lack of food for both human and animal livelihoods. In contrast, in a country like Israel, dry weather could have less impact to the livelihood as they have technological knowhow on how to ensure enough food security during dry spells.
Over the past years, a majority of the third world countries in Africa, Asia, and South America have undergone drought disasters during dry spells. A number of human rights activists have pointed a blaming finger to the first world nations for neglecting issues that could negatively affect human livelihood.2
Third world nations are at a greater risk of the impacts of climatic changes than their counterparts, the developed nations are. Climatic changes lead to changes in the weather patterns, increased temperatures, increased sea levels, and decreased food production and security. Looking into every impact and comparing the effects of each on developed countries, we begin with, changes in the weather patterns.
Weather patterns are influenced by changes in the temperatures at a given geographical point in the world or in the entire atmospheric horizon. The majority of the population in third world countries are vulnerable to adverse changes in the weather patterns for their food production depend on the same patterns. There are periods in a year when people plant their food crops and those that harvesting is done.
Human beings like any creatures rely on the nature programming where there is a sense of certainty for the happening of a particular event at a particular period. This aspect implies that they are certain of harvesting once they plant and can exhaust their food reserves between planting and harvesting.
The most common element of changes in the weather patterns is changes in the rainy seasons whereby rain comes in either lower or higher quantities than anticipated, and each having adverse effects on food production and security. Lower quantity of rain than earlier anticipated could possibly lead to low food production in the affected regions.
For instance, some food crops are designed to stay for longer periods before growing to their maturity, and hence low rain ends before they are ready for harvesting. On the other hand, higher rain than expected may come due to changes in the weather patterns at a particular region, which also has adverse effects as it may cause damages to food crops, soil texture due to soil erosion, and hence food insecurity.
Secondly, increased temperatures are also due to changes in climatic conditions of a place. For instance, there has been an outcry over the high rate of ice melting in the arctic region in the northern hemisphere and especially in the Scandinavian nations like Denmark that are experiencing shorter winter seasons than those experienced two or more decades ago. Increased rate of ice melting leads to increased sea levels.
For instance, in the 2011 UN climatic conference in Denmark, climatic change activists displayed a melting ice statue of a polar bear that carried an illustration of lives at the risk of the melting of ice3. Increased volumes of water due to ice melting pose a threat to livelihoods across the world.
For instance, rivers are used for livelihood and economic reasons and thus a majority of the population lives along the rivers. In case of increase in the volume of water in the rivers, it results to flooding in the residential areas, and hence death and distractions are experienced.
Adverse effects of increase in the river and sea levels cause much distraction to third world countries than to the developed countries. Third world countries rely more on rivers and seas for economic reasons than it is the case for the developed nations.
For instance, along the shores of the Indian Ocean along the African coastline, there is a larger population that relies on seawaters for fishing activities than is the case along the Mediterranean coastline in Europe. Hence, the effects of changes in the sea levels would affect the African population more than the European counterpart because of economic differences between the two.
On the other hand, the effects of changes in the sea level would have different impacts between the third world and first world countries. Many first world nations have adopted advanced technologies that have enabled them to reclaim the land from seas, which is the used as berths and ports.
Hence, a rise in the seawater level would lead them to increasing the heights of such berths and ports, like is the case in the Japanese biggest airport and European largest seaport in Amsterdam.
Third world nations are yet to adopt technologies that would enable them to deal with cases of rising sea levels as compared to their counters.4 Hence, third world countries are more vulnerable to climatic changes as compared to their first world counterparts.
By looking into the matters of food security in relation to vulnerability, it is clear that the third world countries are more vulnerable than the developed first world countries. The reason is mainly due to technological and economic developments between the two classes. Developed countries use advanced technologies for farming as opposed to their counterparts in the developing bracket.
For instance, in the United States of America, large farming scale is done in some states like California where rainfall does not determine the production because of the dryness of the region, but rather advanced irrigation is done. Hence, food security is more of an assurance for a developed country as opposed to the developing country as they mainly rely on experienced rainfall for food production.
Worst still, the issue of climatic change is seem to be a source of power disputes over the world countries.
In most United Nations Environmental Conferences held in the past, some delegates from the third world countries have been seen leaving the auditoriums before the closure of summits or conferences after realizing the strong stands that developed countries have stood on matters relating to the global warming and human activities.
This trend indicates a huge gap between the two classes of world countries that emanates from the issue of climatic conditions.
Adaptation to Climatic Changes
Climatic changes are uncontrolled disasters though their causes seem unpreventable. They are uncontrolled since they are beyond human control in their occurrence and magnitude of effect to nature and livelihood. It is easy to cause a rise in the world temperatures through human activities as it has been the case over the years, but it is very difficult to lower the risen temperatures.
Such knowledge causes a great pain to the third world nations who suffer more for a problem they contribute very little. Developed nations are more advanced in technologies and through such advancement, they have heavy machineries that they use for economic reasons, thus causing changes in the climatic changes.
Since the causes of damage are related to economic reasons and development, the effects of damage have little effect on economic activities. This realization implies the greatest reason why developed nations experience little effect of climatic changes in the world5.
On the other hand, developing nations have little technology and in most cases, they rely on the outdated technologies of their counterparts to boost their economic growth and developments. In addition, their industrial activities have been acquired via franchises from the developed countries because they cannot exploit their industrial potential without efficient technologies.6
Consequently, they rely more on climate for economic growth and development. Hence, the damages to the climatic conditions have direct adverse effect on livelihood and economic growth and developments of the same countries.
A good case is the hot debate of global warming that has been an issue of debate since the Kyoto protocol of 1990s. Global warming is well known to result from economic activities, and especially through industrial gas emissions. Since third world countries are less developed, they are exempted from causing much damage to the ozone layer, but developed countries are to blame.
In contrast, third world countries suffer more from adverse effects of global warming than their counterparts who are the oppressors of nature.
Global warming is the cause of many adverse effects of climatic change and in the Kyoto Protocol, a declaration was made to enhance the reduction of gas and other industrial emissions that are known to cause global warming, but this declaration is implemented ineffectively due to the reluctance of some developed countries.
Impact of World Inequity to the Adaption of Climatic Changes
World is yet to achieve equity, but a great inequity has been the norm. Inequity is the main reason for imbalances in the development and adaptation to the climatic changes. Inequity is a vice that cannot be debated, as it seems impossible for equity to be achieved in the modern world.
Developed countries use inequity as a tool of power control over the vulnerable countries and thus they cannot allow the vulnerable countries to achieve full independence. It is unfortunate to note that crises in human livelihood are an advantage to some humans across the world.
Climatic changes are well known to the developed countries that they cause imbalances in the world, but they do little to reverse the situation.7 If the situation were to be reversed, developed countries would be forced to produce less gas through industrial activities, and hence experience lower economic growth and development than they wish.
The majority of the developed countries enjoy being the economic superpowers of the world, and as a result, they are ever increasing their production through industrial means. In addition, they lie to the world that they have modernized technology that is more environmentally friendly, but they are reluctant to share it with other countries.
This aspect seems to be more of a power and superiority race than economic growth and development activities for themselves due to the great injustice they cause to humanity and future generations. According to history, human evolution reached a climax after the industrial evolution.8
Industrial evolution brought in great injustices to humanity as every kingdom and emperor started to care less for human dignity, but instead more of superiority over their neighboring kingdoms and emperors. Hence, what is being experienced in the modern world has its historical roots.
Judging by the history then, it is clear that at no time will economically empowered nations give power to their counterparts who are economically challenged.
Conclusion
The great economic gap between the developed and the developing
countries is a major contributor to the inequity in climactic change adaptations in the world. While the developed countries are pushing their developing counterparts into adopting clean energy like solar and wind energy, the former are not ready to adopt the same sources of energy.
Harnessing solar energy to melt steel will take ages and the developed nations know that even though they are advocating the use of solar energy, and thus there is a conflict between policymakers in the two sides. Therefore, to achieve a considerable capability in the adaptation of climatic changes in the world, the developed countries shall have to admit having caused damage to the livelihood and take responsibility.
The responsibility may be in the form of changing their way of production and adopt methods that are friendly to nature as opposed to the one currently being used. In addition, it will be necessary for the developed countries to support the third world countries through economic empowerment strategies.
This move will serve a long way in ensuring that third world nations do not rely more on climate for economic and livelihood purposes, but also on other means such as industrialization. However, this goal is unachievable in the real world as history holds that rules of survival for the fittest have to apply as long as humanity exists.
Reference List
Cline, W 2007, Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country, Peterson Institute, London
Ford, J & Ford, L 2011, Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Nations: From Theory to Practice, Springer, New York.
Leary, N 2008, Climate Change and Adaptation, Routledge, London.
Pelling, M 2011, Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation, Routledge, London.
Smith, J & Klein, R 2003, Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity and Development, Imperial College Press, New Delhi.
Footnotes
1J. Ford, & L. Ford 2011, Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Nations: from Theory to Practice, Springer, New York, p.103.
2N, Leary 2008, Climate Change and Adaptation, Routledge, London, p.76.
3Ford & Ford, p.111.
4J. Smith & R. Klein 2003, Climate Change, Adaptive Capacity and Development, Imperial College Press, New Delhi, p.72.
5W. Cline 2007, Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country, Peterson Institute, London, p.66.
6Smith & Klein, p.86.
7M. Pelling 2011, Adaptation to Climate Change: from Resilience to Transformation, Routledge, London, p.90.
8Smith & Klein, p.88.