Presenter: Chloe Talbert
Mentor: Ronald Mitchell, Political Science
Oral Presentation
Majors: Computer Science and Political Science
This research examines the relationship between climate change vulnerability and colonialism, in an attempt to identify and explain any correlation between a country’s colonial history, and its level of risk to climate change. Adaptation
to climate change is becoming a more essential part of climate change policy. To determine adaption policies, we must first determine what climate changes we will have to adapt to. This means determining how vulnerable we are to climate change, and in what areas. Using the DARA Vulnerability Monitor, I have identified a pattern, by which countries with colonial histories have the highest vulnerabilities to climate change, where non-colonial countries have the lowest. This relationship is investigated in two different case studies, China and Mongolia, and Japan and Indonesia. This research compares these countries’ socio-economic indicators of vulnerability, and consults the literature surrounding said indicators to determine how they affect a country’s vulnerability. These same factors are then examined in relation to colonialism, using literature surrounding colonialism and its affects, to determine how colonialism influences these factors. Combined, these findings suggest that having a colonial history increases a country’s vulnerability to climate change. However, this research focuses on a single aspect of vulnerability, economic loss, and the next step in research would be to assess the same issue with different kinds of vulnerability, to see if these results are consistent.