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  • VIDEO – Joshua Busby on Climate Change and African Political Stability

    April 6, 2010 By Sean Peoples
    “It is not enough to say that Ethiopia is vulnerable,” says Joshua Busby, an assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Also necessary is “which parts of Ethiopia are vulnerable and why.” Busby is part of the Department of Defense-funded Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) project. Part of the Minerva Research Initiative, CCAPS is a multi-year, multi-institution effort to diagnose and assess the causal connections between climate change and security consequences.

    In order to diagnose these relationships, CCAPS will use “geographic information systems to map sub-national vulnerability to climate change,” Busby says. Maps will not only include physical exposure to climate change, but also detailed social, household, and community level indicators and broader factors of politics, governance, and demography.

    Although only in the first year of the project, Busby describes the initial achievements CCAPS has made in mapping specific vulnerability areas throughout western Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Nigeria. In the next few years, the CCAPS project will continue to map region-specific areas of vulnerability on the African continent and will provide policymakers with the tools to improve foreign assistance flows in areas of high vulnerability.
    Topics: Africa, climate change, demography, environmental security, video
    • http://www.blogger.com/profile/00048797030853041149 MD Somers

      I'm glad somebody is doing this study. There are a lot of climate change reports that take a holistic top down view of things, in terms of desertification statistics, temperature rises and lost coastland. But really, the people who matter are those who are going to be directly effected – such as the millions who rely on Lake Chad for water, which has lost 90% of its surface area since 1963.

      I wonder if they're going to look at potential conflict as well? Shortage of resources is likely to lead some fairly nasty fights over entitlement and unfortunately its often the most corrupt and undeserving that come out on top.

    • http://www.mkatherinemccaston.com Kathy McCaston

      This is a very exciting initiative. It brings together larger climate change issues with potential impact at the local level on households and communities (people) as well as the larger geopolitical issues. This is a first I believe.

      I would ask if there have been efforts to link to and coordinate with other similar efforts in Africa, such as the World Food Programme's Vulnerability Area Mapping (VAM) and USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS)?

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