This special report brings together scientific communities with expertise in three very different aspects of managing risks of extreme weather and climate events. For this report, specialists in disaster recovery, disaster risk management, and disaster risk reduction, a community mostly new to the IPCC, joined forces with experts in the areas of the physical science basis of climate change and climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Only over the last few years has the science of extreme weather and climate events, their impacts, and options for dealing with them become mature enough to support a comprehensive assessment. This report provides a careful assessment of scientific, technical, and socioeconomic knowledge as of May 2011, the cut-off date for literature included.
The Special Report represents the combined efforts of hundreds of leading experts. governments and observer organizations nominated experts for the author team. The team approved by the IPCC working groups consisted of 87 coordinating lead authors and lead authors, plus 19 review editors. In addition, 140 contributing authors submitted draft text and information to the author teams. The drafts of the report were circulated twice for formal review, first to experts and second to both experts and governments.
This report contains a summary for policymakers plus nine chapters. Chapter 1 frames the issue of extreme weather and climate events as a challenge in understanding and managing risk. It characterizes risk as emerging from the overlap of a triggering physical event with exposure of people and assets and their vulnerability. Chapter 2 explores the determinants of exposure and vulnerability in detail, concluding that every disaster has social as well as physical dimensions. Chapter 3 is an assessment of the scientific literature on observed and projected changes in extreme weather and climate events, and their attribution to causes where possible. Chapter 4 assesses observed and projected impacts, considering patterns by sector as well as region. Chapters 5 through 7 assess experience and theory in adaptation to extremes and disasters, focusing on issues and opportunities at the local scale (Chapter 5), the national scale (Chapter 6), and the international scale (Chapter 7). Chapter 8 assesses the interactions among sustainable development, vulnerability reduction, and disaster risk, considering both opportunities and constraints, as well as the kinds of transformations relevant to overcoming the constraints. Chapter 9 develops a series of case studies that illustrate the role of real life complexity but also document examples of important progress in managing risk.
