New research paper emphasizes the human element in managing climate risks in the Pacific
HONOLULU (March 9, 2010) – With nations spending untold millions on scientific research to address the global climate crisis, social scientist Melissa L. Finucane cautions that they should not neglect another key element – the human factor. A Senior Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, Finucane states in a recent paper that a purely technocratic approach ignores the dynamic psychological, cultural, social, economic and political systems that shape different societies' response to the threat of climate change impacts.
Click here to listen to an interview with Dr. Finucane on the EarthSky science program.
In her recent AsiaPacific Issues paper titled "Why Science Alone Won't Solve the Climate Crisis: Managing Climate Risks in the Pacific," Finucane argues that policymakers need to set a risk management agenda that integrates sound science with an understanding of how that science is interpreted and translated into action. Her research focuses on the Pacific Islands, highlighting the differences in cultures and beliefs among the island nations, and how they impact threat perception and decision-making.
"Understanding and addressing the gaps between different views of and responses to climate risks is important, because in democracies the beliefs of many stakeholder groups affect government policy," Finucane writes. "Knowing how different people conceptualize climate risks will help policymakers select effective tools that trigger appropriate actions."
Finucane asserts that the Pacific islands are more prone to the climate crisis than any other region because they lie at the heart of the oceanic and atmospheric interactions that create the earth's climate system, and many are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels.
She relates that there has been an increase of weather-related disasters in the Pacific, such as cyclones, floods, and droughts. Developing states on small islands are considered among the most vulnerable to climate change, Finucane writes, because of their limited resources, susceptibility to natural hazards, physical isolation, low adaptive capacity and high adaptation costs relative to gross domestic product. But each island culture has their own view on the climate, with some believing that human actions can affect the weather or climatic conditions, and others convinced that people are unable to affect climate.
Some of the risk-management tools she proposes are:
Finucane concludes that "Although science is an important part of what decision makers need to know, the best solution to the climate crisis will come from an integrated approach to risk management that helps people combine multiple perspectives in determining priorities, increases the number of action options, and facilitates successful adaptation to the changing climate by at-risk communities."
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