Climate Change Discourse and Adaptation Narrative

Abstract

This chapter defines the dominant climate change discourse and the adaptation narrative linking the latter with mainstream social sciences. As commonly observed, the current discourse on climate change adaptation is rich and dynamic. However, because of the diversity of disciplines engaged in it, the narrative at times would lack coherence as seen in discussion threads on vulnerability, awareness and resilience. The climate change community submits that one's exposure to climate threats, sensitivity to climate extremes and adaptive capacity to climate impacts determine vulnerability to climate risks. Furthermore, the community uses the terms awareness and knowledge interchangeably when the behavioral and learning science traditions make clear distinctions and differentiations between the two. The current discourse also pays emphasis on the words resilience and sustainability and highlights the transdisciplinary nature of each. The authors present their arguments on how these discussion threads should be effectively treated.