Climate adaptation, local institutions and rural livelihoods
To understand the role of institutions in future adaptation of rural livelihoods to climate change, especially by poorer and more marginal groups, it is essential to attend to the historical repertoire of strategies used by rural populations. Natural resource-dependent rural households are likely to bear a disproportionate burden of the adverse impacts of climate change – droughts, famines, floods, variability in rainfall, storms, coastal inundation, ecosystem degradation, heat waves, fires, epidemics, and even conflicts. In some parts of the world, these effects may already be in play with potentially disastrous consequences for the poor (Adger et al., 2007). Many households in vulnerable regions could periodically be driven into destitution and hunger and find it difficult afterwards to recover.