3 Areas of ‘high cultural risk’
Identifying the most vulnerable areas and groups living in these areas to global climate change with reasonable accuracy remains challenging since global as well as regional climate
change models still lack detailed resolution to predict the types and magnitudes of changes to be expected at a regional or local level. Especially when it comes to direction of change in
precipitation for some regions there is not sufficient knowledge available to make reliable predictions. Nevertheless, even though it is not possible today to isolate specific groups and
local places of highest risk it is possible to identify broad regions which are likely to experience certain types of climate change and extreme events Dow, Kasperson Bohn,
2007. The following maps superimpose the location of indigenous and traditional peoples ethno-
linguistic groups on climate change prediction data from the IPCC 2007
2
. The resulting maps show the coincidence of some areas of high concentration of indigenous and traditional
peoples and areas of greatest predicted climatic change. Regions where these two conditions occur simultaneously may represent areas of particular interest or vulnerability. The particular
interests and needs of indigenous and traditional peoples where change, even change which may be considered beneficial at a national or regional level for example, increased
precipitation in currently arid areas such as the Sahel may give rise to potentially threatening changes in traditional livelihood systems, settlement patterns, land prices, etc.
3.1 Projected Global Changes in Precipitation
Figure 2 Multi model mean changes in precipitation mm day–1 for the time period 2080 to 2099
Changes in precipitation remain hard to predict and there are still large uncertainties. As precipitation is a function of inherently small scale processes, such as cloud formation,
moisture availability and so forth predictions for future precipitation represent an on-going, important challenge for climate modellers Frame, 2007. However, as the map above
indicates, it is possible to locate broad areas which are expected to experience the biggest
2
All climate and sea level change data were taken from the IPCC Forth Assessment Report of Working Group One 2007 and represent an average prediction of several climate models for the A1B emissions scenario during the period 2080-2099
see Annex II. Maps with the location of ethnolinguistic groups are from Oviedo, Maffi and Larsen, 2000.
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changes in precipitations increase or decrease. Based on data from the IPCC 2007, a majority of models indicate an increase in precipitation across the seasons in high latitudes
and in some of the monsoon regimes including South Asian monsoon in June, July, August and Australian monsoon in December, January, February. In mid latitudes a widespread
decrease of summer precipitation has been predicted except for increases in eastern Asia. The models further converge in their predictions of major decreases in precipitation across the
subtropics. A particularly pronounced decrease in precipitation has been predicted for the Caribbean and Mediterranean regions. Thus, traditional and indigenous peoples living across
the Caribbean and Mediterranean regions, parts of Brazil, southern Chile and Argentina, southern Africa and large parts of Australia are expected to face increasing freshwater stress
over the course of this century, putting them at severe risk. Increases in precipitation over 20 have been projected for most high latitudes, as well as in eastern Africa, central Asia and
the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Since not only decreases but also increases in precipitation - especially extreme events including droughts or floods - have implications on traditional and
indigenous peoples’ livelihoods, groups living in the mentioned ‘risk areas’ will have to adapt their livelihoods to new environmental conditions.
3.2 Projected Global Changes in Temperature
