Climatization : A critical perspective of framing disasters as climate change events

摘要

Highlights ? We explore the trend of labelling specific disasters as ‘climate change disasters’. ? We introduce a new concept dubbed ‘ climatization ’. ? We examine implications of climatization through a qualitative study in Bangladesh. ? Climatization can be used to cover up negligence and bad management. ? Climatization can lead to other key vulnerabilities being overlooked. Abstract In recent years, there has been a developing trend of labelling some disasters as ‘ climate change disasters ’. In doing so, a discursive phenomenon can emerge that the authors have coined ‘ climatization ’ which is specified as framing a disastrous event or degraded environmental condition as caused by climate change, in order to reach an intended goal or to distract the discussion from the real problem which might have a different root course than caused by the climate change effects .The implications of climatization are currently unclear – particularly to what extent climatizing a disaster might increase or decrease the vulnerability of a population at risk of disaster. The purpose of this paper is thus to open up the concept of climatization to investigation, and examine what affect such a discursive framing might have on public and political perception.Climatization is here discussed in the context of Bangladesh – a country that is expected to be among the worst affected by climate change and a country in which some people claim the effects of climate change can already be seen. A qualitative field study which included key informant interviews, focus group discussions and a literature review was conducted in Bangladesh.The study found recent examples of climatization related to Cyclone Aila (2009) and salt water intrusion in Bangladesh. In most cases these disasters were climatized in order to create a sense of urgency in order to push for an increase in financial aid to Bangladesh and to deflect responsibility for inaction that led up to the disaster. This study urges caution as there is a potential for climatization to be used as a means to cover up negligence or bad management and there is a risk that by climatizing a disaster key vulnerabilities may be overlooked. prs.rt("abs_end"); Keywords Popular discourse ; Climate change ; Natural hazards ; Securitization ; Bangladesh ; Risk assessment Introduction Each year, millions of people are affected by natural disasters worldwide ( EM-DAT, 2014 ). In this paper the term disaster is used to refer to both sudden onset and slow onset disasters which have resulted from naturally occurring hazards. A hazard (such as a cyclone, earthquake or drought) is of course not itself a disaster; rather a hazard only becomes a disaster when it causes “a serious disruption to the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources” ( UNISDR, 2009 ). There are several factors that play a role in determining if a specific hazard becomes a disaster, including the scale and intensity of the hazard, the specific vulnerabilities of the affected population in relation to the hazard, and the specific capacities of the affected population in relation to the hazard ( Wisner et al., 2008 ). As the climate changes, it is projected that the frequency and intensity of natural hazards is also expected to change in various ways ( IPCC, 2014 ). Hazard-prone countries are projected to face more extreme versions of pre-existing hazards: for example, due to warmer sea surface temperatures, more cyclones are expected to reach category 4 and 5; as well as encounter new hazards such as the loss of coastal land due to sea level rise. Furthermore, environmental conditions such as saltwater intrusion – the movement of sea water into fresh water sources – are also expected to be exasperated by climate change ( IPCC, 2014 and MoEF, 2009 ). In recent years there has been a developing trend of labelling current disasters as ‘ climate change disasters ’ – meaning a disaster that is caused or directly intensified by climate change ( Alam et al., 2011 , Schwartz, 2012 and UNEP, 2013 ). In many cases this has led to calls for action to be taken based on the assumption that specific current disasters are in fact attributed to climate change ( Bojanowski, 2012 , Vidal, 2012 and Wrigley, 2012 ). Meanwhile, the term ‘climate change’ is becoming increasingly politicized and is frequently a topic of debate among world leaders. In the context of the growing climate change discourse, the ‘climate change disaster’ could potentially create an opportunity for the securitization of climate change. When a specific issue is securitized , it is “presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure” ( Buzan et al., 1998 , Waever, 2008 and Waever, 2011 ). However, there is also the potenti