Introduction

This chapter introduces an experimental quantitative framework for analyzing the economic vulnerabilities and resilience of countries to climate change induced conflict. It is the first monitor to specifically divide the climate change and planetary security framework into four areas of discussion. It will be expanded and improved upon in the coming years.

The quantitative analytical framework of Economics of Planetary Security that is outlined here is based on the qualitative discussion in previous chapters and is therefore divided in four layers. The first three layers comprise of different indices which illustrate the degree of Conflict Vulnerability, Climate Change Vulnerability, and Low Carbon Risks. These layers, taken together, indicate the level of vulnerability a country faces. The last layer contains a resilience layer which focuses on how both public and private sectors can mobilize resources in developing economic resilience.

The multi-layered framework underscores that risks from climate change are not solely ‘externally generated circumstances’ to which a state responds, but are rather the result of complex interactions among the population, environment and economy. The overall quantitative framework results in a visual representation of resilience of countries to climate change as a conflict factor: the Climate Change Economic Resilience Monitor.

Layers of the framework

Previous climate change vulnerability monitors – such as the DARA Climate Vulnerability Monitor - focus on providing broader indices of climate change vulnerability.[50] In digressing from this mainstream approach, the multi-layered structure of our quantitative framework allows us to create indices with specific focuses on certain areas of climate change. The four different layers allow for a thorough examination of the risks posed by climate change, and whether there is a heightened risk of climate change contributing to the onset of (violent) conflict. The first two layers aim to take into account the breadth of different factors and comprise of more factors when compared to Layers Three and Four. Additionally, Layers One to Three taken together represent ‘vulnerability’ factors, whereas Layer Four represents ‘resilience’, here interpreted as the inverse of vulnerability.

Layer One, the Conflict Vulnerability Monitor, consists of the already existing HCSS Drivers of Vulnerability Monitor an interactive tool that allows users to assess intra-state fragility for around 200 countries worldwide on the basis of a vast indicator dataset that measures societal, political and security drivers of state.[51] Layer Two analyzes a state’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change, or the degree to which a country’s environment is exposed to the harms of climate change by factoring in environmental, hydrologic, geographic and topographic (land surface) concerns. Layer Three emphasizes the risk associated with transitioning to a low carbon economy. Layer Four analyses the economic capacity of states to resist or mitigate (resilience) the negative impacts of climate change in order to reach and maintain a certain level of functioning, and it is described as the Climate Change Economic Resilience Monitor:

For a more concise overview of the indicators used in the different layers and how the data was computed, please read the Annex on the indicators used in each layer (Annex 1 – 4) and the methodology (Annex 6).

Indicators in the Conflict Vulnerability Monitor

The Conflict Vulnerability Monitor measures the (in)ability of a country to withstand societal, political and security pressures. Conflict vulnerability - in this context - refers to the degree to which a country’s population is exposed to conflict and is susceptible to the emergence thereof as a consequence of, inter alia, bad governance, low quality of life, no adequate rule of law and various other factors. Taken together, these different characteristics influence the degree to which a country is able to successfully withstand internal and external socio-political stressors.[53]

Social vulnerabilities at an individual level are largely absent from the indicators used, mainly due to the difficulty in measuring and quantifying the indicators involved; rather, the monitor focuses on levels of social cohesion and development. In the final monitor, users can generate their own composite indices which can in turn be exported in various forms. This added value of utility makes it a powerful research tool.

Drawing inspiration from the HCSS Drivers of Vulnerability Monitor, the analysis in level one is divided into three subdomains: social, political and security.[54] It is evident that there is a degree of overlap between these indicators and those used in the other domains (see Annex for the indicator criteria selection). The security subdomain addresses issues such as incidence of conflict, terrorism and mortality. Worthy of note is the lack of attention granted to solely state and non-state actors through the creation of smaller domains. The added value of grouping these two types of actors is that it grants a holistic awareness of the overall status of security in a country. It is possible, however, in a latter iteration that further divides the security subdomain based on the type of actor. The political subdomain zooms in on a country’s political context with an emphasis on political variance, rule of law, prevalence of corruption and the quality of governance. The social subdomain addresses the development, demographic and health aspects of vulnerability (see Annex 1).

Indicators in the Climate Change Vulnerability Monitor

The second layer focuses solely on environmental factors and their relationship with climate change. Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts which include sensitivity or susceptibility to harm, and conventionally, the lack of capacity to adapt.[55] Climate change vulnerability is the degree to which a country’s environment is exposed to the harms of climate change by factoring in environmental, hydrological, geographic and topographic (land surface) concerns.

Economic and social vulnerabilities were excluded from the indicators as they were deemed irrelevant in the conceptualization of climate change vulnerability; rather, with an emphasis on the environment, it attempts to reduce the amount of data with human-related aspects. In the final monitor users too will be able to generate their own composite indicator, thus having the option of removing human-related data sets such as water stress and populations living in areas below five meters above sea-level.

The topic areas are divided into five subdomains: land, water, disasters, precipitation and sea-level. These five domains were selected as they best captured a holistic understanding of the environment. The land domain relates to agricultural issues by focusing on arable land and desert, the water domain relates to domestic freshwater sources and water stress, the precipitation domain best captures atmospheric conditions and change over time, while the sea-level domain focuses on rises in sea-level. The disaster domain focuses on extreme scenarios in a range of these subdomains. Taken together, these different characteristics influence the degree of harm climate change may have on a country by expressing a vulnerability score which could be reinterpreted as a sum of external environmental stress. The land subdomain addresses the nature of land degradation with indices such as arable land and percentage of desert of a state as a proxy of desertification. The precipitation subdomain uses the volatility of precipitation and the change overtime to determine the changing nature of precipitation, with the degree of change indicative of vulnerability. The disaster subdomain is a composite indicator which tallies the frequency of weather-related disasters (storms, floods etc.). The sea-level subdomain is its own indicator which conveys the percentage of a country’s population living below 5 meters above sea-level. Lastly, the water subdomain focuses on the state of water bodies in a country and the degree to which they are vulnerable (see Annex 2).

Indicators in the Low Carbon Risk Factors Monitor

The third layer investigates the degree to which a country is dependent on fossil fuels and the risks associated with such a dependency for its economy. Risks here include the potential for consequences where the outcome is uncertain.[56] It is often represented as the probability of the occurrence of hazardous events and usually results from the interaction of vulnerability and exposure to a particular hazard. While this layer has an economic taint to it, it is imperative to take into consideration that this risk is amplified once it is taken in relation to the previous layers.

In order to capture the dependency on fossil fuels, fossil fuel resource rents of the countries, the proportion of electricity produced from oil sources, and the degree of renewable energy consumption are used. Again, here it is more desirable to have a low score as this indicates a lower level of risk. With countries incrementally adopting or ratifying pro-climate change treaties, it is increasingly likely that states will transition to low carbon economies. Layer Three, therefore, illustrates the ease of such a transition. It was decided that dividing this layer into smaller sub-domains was undesirable as this layer is not as extensive and broad as Layer One and Layer Two, and aims to focus solely on a country’s dependence on fossil fuels by integrating data from resource rents, renewable energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions

Indicators in the Economic Resilience Monitor

Climate change resilience, as a subfield of climate change impact, is a relatively novel area of investigation. In light of how the data was computed, it was decided that the final score of this layer would be taken in inverse form to allow us to create a consolidated aggregate of the four layers, and to make a high score less desirable here as well. Generating the inverse had no ramifications on the normalization techniques used. Layer Four provides a more specific understanding of economic resilience to climate change.

Layer Four focuses on economic indicators and how they illustrate the overall degree of economic resilience in a country. Economic resilience is defined as the economic capacity of a state susceptible to climate change effects to adapt, through resisting or changing, in order to maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure.[57] The ability of a country to deal with climate change depends on how vulnerable it is according to Layers One to Three and how it relates to the degree of economic resilience a country possesses.[58]

Unlike the first two layers, and similar to Layer Three, the Economic Resilience Layer is not divided into subdomains because of its already specific nature, as it purely targets economic indicators. The indicators aim to highlight economic resilience from both a public and private point of view, in order to give policymakers and businesses professionals an understanding of what needs to be addressed, or invested in, respectively. Economic resilience is often equated to development intervention, and/or business activism. In creating two subdomains, such as a private subdomain and public subdomain, one risks isolating the variables from one another, subsequently painting a less comprehensive picture and showing little overlap between the two respective sectors. The advantage of this is that it shows the most desirable configurations/scenarios that governments should have in combatting climate change (see Annex 4).

Consolidated Layers

The Consolidated Layers aim to provide readers with an aggregate value of the combination of the layers. These aggregates aim to capture the conversation of the Economic of Planetary Security, by aggregating the scores of the different layers together. There are two possible combinations: The first combination is a Consolidated Risk Layer. The aggregate output from this layer aims to capture the overall level of risk a state is in. This Consolidated Risk Layer factors in Layers One to Three. Countries which score highest in this layer are countries which have high scores across the board in the first three layers. The second combination combines the previous layer as an aggregate score with the degree of economic resilience, culminating in the Consolidated Resilience Layer. For policymakers, this indicates the overall degree of resilience to climate change and the countries which are most capable of mitigating the negative impacts of the four different layers. The importance of this layer to both policymakers and business professionals should not be understated. Firstly, it grants them further insight into how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, how these three layers taken together illustrate the overall state of preparedness in a country. Secondly, it can help policy makers forecast future trends in regards to the multiplier effects of climate change by cross comparing the consolidated layers with the first four layers.