A scoping review on global climate change vulnerability, adaptation, and resiliency

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Climate change affects people, not only through environmental exposures and health outcomes, but how they live their lives. Consequences will affect various sectors, ranging from tourism to water to energy development—areas where people live, work, and enjoy. Because of these forced changes, people must adapt. Methods: A scoping review was created to understand climate change vulnerability alongside adaption and resiliency measures that are being implemented in each continent of the world; this review is a subset of information from Zolnikov, T. R. (2019). Global Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change. In: T. R. Zolnikov (Ed.). Cham, Switzerland; Springer International Publishing. Results: It was determined that adaptive capacity differs worldwide. This is likely because the capacity to adapt and change is linked to both social and economic development; some regions in the world may not be sufficiently equipped and thus, may not be able to mitigate or adapt to changes. Such was the case in Australia, Europe, and North and South America, where economic resources were more available, and the general culture of climate change appeared to be more developed through various policies. Whereas, for example, Asia and Africa were less economically developed and focused less on individual changes, but joined larger climate change agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol. Conclusions: The objective of this review was to understand the differences that may help or hinder progress under the new world set forth by climate change. The information provided evidence that a “one size fits all” approach does not work to promote climate change resiliency. In fact, each continent in the world suffers from some barriers to change, while also offering elements of success that can be shared. It is these types of lessons learned that can help pull the world together to learn from each other and promote the effectiveness of measures as well as the capacity for populations to adapt. Keywords: Climate Change, Environmental Health, Global Health