Introduction

This chapter briefly considers some of the methods involved in and outcomes arising from analyses of future environmental impacts and human vulnerability.

As we have seen in the two previous chapters, all projections of future climate and climate impacts, whether at global or regional scale, are, in large measure, contingent upon emission scenarios that are a function of human actions. So far, we have largely side-stepped the issue of estimating the likely consequences for human populations of any given scenario and the projections arising from it, but it is at this level of evaluation, with all its additional uncertainties, that the scientific research and the concerns of most policy makers meet at all spatial and organisational scales from planetary to local. At one extreme, we have, for example, concerns about the type and extent of intervention in global energy fluxes or biogeochemistry that may be necessary and justified in mitigating the effects of a long-term build up in atmospheric greenhouse gases. At the other extreme, every human population, irrespective of its size or location, is faced with the following questions. What kind of climate are we likely to experience in the future? How different will it be from the recent past? What implications will this have for our life support and welfare? Can we do anything to prepare for and adapt to the likely changes if and when they can be confidently predicted?