State fragility and climate vulnerability: is there a relation?Abstract
State fragility and climate change are global phenomena that have drawn the attention of specialists in recent years. The aim of this article is to verify whether there is any relation between the increase in a state’s fragility and its climate vulnerability. We selected ten countries that most increased their fragility and ten that most reduced their fragility between 2011 and 2020. Our analysis combined two indices: FSI and ND-GAIN. We concluded that there is a direct proportionality relation between an increase or decrease in a country’s degree of fragility and an increase or decrease in its degree of climate vulnerability. However, we also found some exceptions that we needed to explain.
Keywords:
state fragility; climate vulnerability; Fragile States Index; ND-GAIN; climate change
Resumo
Fragilidade estatal e mudança do clima são fenômenos globais que têm chamado a atenção de especialistas nos últimos anos. O objetivo deste artigo é verificar se existe alguma relação entre o aumento da fragilidade de um Estado e a sua vulnerabilidade climática. Selecionamos dez países que mais aumentaram a sua fragilidade e dez que mais reduziram a sua fragilidade entre 2011 e 2020. Nossa análise combinou dois índices: FSI e ND-GAIN. Concluímos que existe uma relação direta de proporcionalidade entre um aumento ou diminuição do grau de fragilidade de um país e um aumento ou diminuição dos seus graus de vulnerabilidade climática, mas também encontramos algumas exceções que precisamos explicar.
Palavras-chave:
fragilidade estatal; vulnerabilidade climática; Fragile States Index; ND-GAIN; mudança do clima
Introduction
Two global phenomena have drawn the attention of specialists, politicians and the world population in general in recent years: the increasing fragility of most countries and the concern with issues related to the climate, especially generated by global warming and its consequences.
Regarding the first phenomenon, the fragility of the States, we can see that several countries, mainly on the African continent, have moved away from the Weberian conception of State and, at the same time, present more difficulties in maintaining the provision of basic goods and services to its citizens. Together with this increase in fragility, we have as a consequence the increase in crime, corruption, disrespect for human rights and also the economic degradation of these States.
At the same time, climate change has also posed challenges for the international community. It affects all countries in the world, but more intensely those poorest and with little capacity to adapt to this new reality. Climate change has increased the level of the oceans, accelerated the desertification of several regions and intensified natural disasters caused, for example, by floods and hurricanes (IPCC, 2022).
That said, the aim of the present study is to verify whether there is any kind of relation between the increase in the fragility of a State and its climate vulnerability. Using two of the most respected indexes for measuring these phenomena – the Fragile States Index (FSI), produced and released annually by the Fund for Peace institution, and the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN) – we seek to identify whether there are some causal correlations between the intensification of a country's fragility and its exposure to climate change. If any kind of relation between these two phenomena is verified, we will try to explain the nature of these supposed connections.
Firstly, we will define what is considered the fragility of a State, list the variables that participate in this phenomenon and enumerate the possible consequences arising from it. Next, we will deal with the concept of climate vulnerability of countries, identify the methodology for measuring this phenomenon and specify how much the capacity to respond to climate change impacts on the resilience of States to this type of situation.
After presenting the concepts, variables and possibilities for measuring these two phenomena, we will identify the ten countries that most increased their fragility and the ten that most managed to reduce their fragility in the period between 2011 and 2020. The choice of this period is due to the fact that we need to identify not a specific moment, but a historical development of the variation in fragility in order to be able to nullify any eventual more punctual variation of this index - which led us to believe that a decade would be enough for such measurement.
Next, we will verify if there is any correlation of proportionality between the increase and decrease of the fragility of these States and the variation of their vulnerabilities to climate change. Finally, if any relation is identified between an increase/decrease in the fragility of States and an increase/decrease in climate vulnerability in these countries, we will try to explain the nature of these possible relations.
The hypothesis that guides the present study is: as a State increases its fragility, the greater its climate vulnerability becomes. Increased fragility would make countries more likely to suffer the consequences of climate change, as well as placing them in a situation of less readiness to respond and adapt to these climate changes.
State fragility
The concept of State fragility began to be systematically developed in the last decade of the 20th century. Previously called Failed States or Weak States, the concept referred to political units that, for various reasons, had distanced themselves from the Weberian concept of the State. Whether due to the loss of the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, due to Civil Wars or due to the loss of control over their borders, these States were treated as entities that had lost the capacity to maintain their social cohesion and in which governments were questioned about his legitimacy to rule the nation. Over time, other variables were taken into account in classifying these States as fragile. Thus, factors such as the systematic disrespect for Human Rights or low levels of quality of life of the population also became indicative of the fragility of a country (Call, 2008; Rotberg, 2004; Szuhai, 2015).
The September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States were a turning point in the debates about State fragility. Until then, interventions in fragile States by the International Community were seen with only humanitarian purposes. Generally, interference in a fragile State was justified with the aim of helping the local population by avoiding genocide, famine, forced displacement, or even to guarantee the protection of citizens against their despotic governments. After the September 11 attacks, several authors began to draw attention to the existing security bias in these States. The hypothesis would be that, as with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, fragile States would have the potential to become hotbeds of terrorist activity, from which attacks could be planned and terrorists co-opted and trained. In this way, the effort of the International Community to prevent and remove these States from their situations of fragility would not only have a humanitarian bias, but also the intention of preventing terrorism and, therefore, ensuring international security. Based on this reasoning, several interventions began to take place during the 21st century with the justification of combating terrorism by reducing the fragility of countries (Menkhaus, 2007; Newman, 2009; Pasagic, 2020; Piazza, 2008).
Whether for humanitarian or international security reasons, the debate on State fragility has grown sharply in the last two decades, both in political and academic circles. Discussions on the reasons that lead a State to fragility, the consequences of this condition, the best ways to measure fragility and what must be done to avoid this scenario or to mitigate the situation of a country that is already in this situation, began to guide the debates of International Relations in the last thirty years.
As Rotberg (2004) discusses, weak states include a broad continuum of states that share a few characteristics. They are often governed by despots, whether elected or not. They normally harbor ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other intercommunal tensions . Weak states also tend to have high or increasing urban crime rates. They also have a low ability to provide adequate measures of other political goods. Their physical infrastructure networks have deteriorated, and schools and hospitals are neglected, especially outside major cities. Their performance on the economic indicators such as GDP have fallen or are falling, while their levels of corruption are high and continually growing (Rotberg, 2004).
From these discussions, some consensus could be built over time, such as, for example, the diversity of ills arising from the fragility of a country. It is clear that fragile States have great potential to generate hunger, violence, forced displacement of populations, energy and humanitarian crises. In general, as a State becomes more fragile, public services such as telephony and transportation deteriorate. Social institutions cease to be efficient and corruption becomes endemic, both by the government and the population itself. State fragility leads to a loss of control of the country's borders by its governments and paramilitary groups tend to be created in their territories, questioning the legitimacy of local governments (Rotberg, 2004).
There is also an understanding that several factors can lead a State to a situation of fragility. Disasters - such as the earthquakes that occurred in Haiti – as well as civil wars and exploitation of natural resources by great powers – such as what is currently happening in Syria and what happened in countries like Sierra Leone, respectively - lead a country to become fragile. Disastrous administrations by incapable and corrupt governments are also other factors that have the potential to generate the fragility of a State (Manijikian, 2008; Pilbeam, 2015; Paffenholz, 2021).
However, despite these consensuses reached by scholars, there are several disagreements among specialists in the subject. One of the points of divergence between specialists who deal with the subject is the supposed relation between state fragility and terrorism. Although the September 11, 2001 attacks led specialists to link the two phenomena (State fragility and terrorism), several authors disagree with this supposed relation. Countless arguments claiming that there is some kind of relation between these two variables are confronted with claims that show the opposite. Other authors still claim that it is necessary to specify what type of terrorist activities (co-option of new members, training camps, planning attacks or the very site of attacks) would supposedly be linked to the fragility of States. According to these last scholars, there is the possibility that the fragility of a State facilitates the presence of some types of terrorist actions, but not all (Ibrahimi, 2018; Menkhaus, 2007; Paffenholz; 2021; Piazza, 2008).
The processes of rebuilding fragile States have also become points of contention in debates on the subject. What is the best intervention and reconstruction policies for a fragile State; what role should be given to the local population in this process; what form of government to institute in the country after its reconstruction and even what would be the best form of political representation of the various social segments are questions whose answers depend on the author in question (Fukuyama, 2004; Paffenholz, 2021; Thomson, 1996).
There are several indexes for measuring State fragility, each focusing on specific variables and its own methodology. In this study, we mobilized the Fragile States Index (FSI), which is based on social, economic and political variables that affect countries. The FSI was chosen because, currently, it is the most used in studies on the phenomenon due to the reliability and methodological scope presented. The FSI indicators are summarized in Chart 1.
Furthermore, in the FSI, the lower the score, the lower the country's fragility, and the higher the score, the greater the country's fragility. Thus, low scores indicate greater stability, while high scores indicate greater instability. Figure 1 shows the state fragility map with 2020 data that were released in 2021. In the color grading, states in dark blue show a lower level of fragility, while states in dark red show a higher level of fragility.
As the objective of this article is to limit the analysis to the years 2011 and 2020, we will use the results released by the FSI in the years following this interval, that is, between 2012 and 2021, since, unlike the ND-GAIN, FSI always presents annual results with data referring to the year prior to publication.
Climate vulnerability
Discussions of vulnerability are wide-ranging. In International Relations, the contribution of Keohane and Nye (2012) on vulnerability and sensitivity is the most used. The authors introduce the Complex Interdependence approach to show that States are interdependent, since all are affected by a problem in some way, although in different intensities. This interdependence between States would have consequences both in their sensibilities and their degree of vulnerability. Sensitivity can be political, economic or social, and concerns “how quickly do changes in one country bring costly changes in another, and how great are the costly effects” (Keohane; Nye, 2012, p. 10), while vulnerability is defined as “an actor’s liability to suffer costs imposed by external events even after policies have been altered” (Keohane; Nye, 2012, p. 11). However, the perception of vulnerability used in this article focuses on the climate dimension.
The discussion of vulnerability as a concept emerged as human security was incorporated into the concern for climate change. Human security is about creating adequate living conditions for all people, ensuring that individuals can live with dignity, without violence, ensuring human development and that each person has access to the basic services and necessary opportunities to reach their full potential (O’Brien; St.Clair; Kristoffersen, 2010). That said, human security incorporates the following dimensions: food security, environmental security, community security, economic security, personal security, political security and health security (UNDP, 1994).
The understanding that exposure to many stress factors is a real problem is increasingly consensual, since, for example, food security can be influenced by climatic factors, but also by political, social and economic conditions. Although ambiguities persist in the debate, the fact is that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has prioritized the most vulnerable populations in its policies since its creation in 1992 (O'Brien et al., 2004; Thomas, Warner, 2019).
The meanings for vulnerability may vary, depending on certain socio-political contexts. For Wisner et al. (2003), vulnerability corresponds to the characteristics of an individual or a group and its capacity to anticipate, face, resist and even recover from the impacts of disasters. Such vulnerability involves a combination of factors that determine the degree to which a person's life, livelihood, property and other assets are put at risk by an event. The authors also argue that some groups are more prone to losses and suffering in the context of different risks and dangers, and that class, occupation, ethnicity, gender, health status, age, immigration status, among others, are variables that explain that.
It is important to understand that the concept of vulnerability involves different dimensions, since different individuals may experience vulnerability at higher levels than others. In any case, the term vulnerability is used to designate those people or groups that run the greatest risks. Thus, “when we talk of vulnerable people, it is clear that we mean those who are at the ‘worse’ end of the spectrum” (Wisner et al., 2003, p. 12).
Adger (2006) argues that several disciplines have contributed to the understanding of vulnerability, such as anthropology and psychology. However, it was human geography and human ecology that addressed the particularity of vulnerability to environmental change. Although these approaches have points of divergence, there are many points in common regarding vulnerability applied to the environmental dimension.
First, vulnerability is driven by inadvertent or deliberate human action, which reinforces self-interest and power distribution, in addition to interacting directly with ecological and physical systems. For this reason, environmental vulnerability does not exist separately from the political economy of resource use. Second, there are common terms across the various approaches, with vulnerability often being understood to consist of elements including exposure and sensitivity to external disturbances or stresses and the capacity to adapt. Exposure is the nature and degree to which a system experiences environmental or sociopolitical stress, while sensitivity is the degree to which a system is modified or affected by disturbances. Adaptive capacity, in turn, refers to the capacity of a system to evolve to accommodate environmental risks or policy changes and expand the range of variability with which it can deal (Adger, 2006).
Applied to the environmental dimension, vulnerability concerns the state of susceptibility to damage caused by exposure and stress associated with environmental and social changes caused by the lack of adaptation capacity (Adger, 2006). In its simplest sense, vulnerability concerns the conditions determined by economic, social and environmental factors that increase the propensity of individuals or communities to suffer from the risks, dangers or consequences of something (UNDRR, n.d.). Moreover, it can be the result of several historical, political and economic processes.
In its most abstract form, vulnerability refers to the susceptibility of an individual or social group to harm from a given amount of exposure to a climate hazard. With regard to vulnerability, it is important to realize that there are different ways of measuring it. Two of them are proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and ND-GAIN. Both forms consider three components: “the exposure of the sector to climate-related or climate-exacerbated hazards; the sensitivity of that sector to the impacts of the hazard and the adaptive capacity of the sector to cope or adapt to these impacts” (Chen et al., 2015, p.3). In this paper, we chose to use the ND-GAIN due to the platform's resources and the wide range of data made available by the index.
ND-GAIN measures two dimensions: (1) the vulnerability of a country; and (2) its readiness to respond to this vulnerability. Each of these dimensions has its own indicators and is measured separately. However, the overall climate vulnerability index of countries is calculated based on the combination of these two dimensions.
Thus, the first dimension of the ND- -GAIN index is vulnerability, which concerns “propensity or predisposition of human societies to be negatively impacted by climate hazards” (Chen et al., 2015, p.3). This dimension considers six life supporting sectors: food, water, health, ecosystem services, human habitat and infrastructure. Each of these sectors has 6 indicators that represent the components of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, which makes a total of 36 vulnerability indicators.
As mentioned above, the three elements of vulnerability are exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Exposure concerns the extent to which human society and its supporting sectors are stressed by the future changing climate conditions. Sensitivity refers to the degree to which people and the sectors they depend upon are affected by climate related perturbations. Some factors that increase sensitivity are the degree of dependency on sectors that are climate-sensitive and the proportion of populations sensitive to climate hazard due to factors such as topography and demography. Finally, adaptive capacity refers to the ability of society and its supporting sectors to adjust to reduce potential damage and respond to the negative consequences of climate events (Chen et al., 2015).
That said, Chart 2 summarizes the vulnerability indicators for each of the six sectors, according to the three elements mentioned before.
As mentioned before, these 36 indicators, each for their respective sectors, form the first dimension of ND-GAIN, that is, vulnerability. Such elements of vulnerability lead us to the second dimension of the ND-GAIN index, readiness. This dimension concerns the ability of a country to make effective use of investments for adaptation actions thanks to a safe and efficient business environment. Thus, the ND- -GAIN measures countries' readiness considering their ability to leverage investments to convert them into adaptation actions. To measure this capacity, ND-GAIN considers three components - economic readiness, governance readiness and social readiness (Chen et al., 2023).
Economic readiness concerns an efficient and safe investment and negotiation climate, facilitating the mobilization of capital from the private sector. Governance readiness concerns the stability of the society and institutional arrangements that contribute to avoiding the risk of investment loss. A stable country with high governance capacity reassures investors that the invested capitals can grow with the help of responsive public services and without significant disruption. Social readiness refers to the social conditions that help society to make efficient and equitable use of investment and generate more investment benefits. This dimension has 9 total indicators (Chen et al., 2023). Chart 3 summarizes the readiness indicators for each of the three components of this dimension.
As mentioned before, these 9 indicators, each for their respective components, form the second dimension of ND-GAIN, that is, readiness. It is important to clarify that the “doing business” indicator is composed of 10 sub-indicators. They are: (1) starting a business; (2) dealing with construction permits; (3) getting electricity; (4) registering property; (5) getting credit; (6) protecting investors; (7) paying taxes; (8) trading across borders; (9) enforcing contracts; and (10) resolving insolvency. These indicators are an indication of how countries are capable of attracting adaptation investment (CHEN et al., 2023), with the purpose of being converted to climate change policies, specially mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
Having presented the ND-GAIN, Figure 2 summarizes the two dimensions of the index, its sectors from vulnerability and its components from readiness, in order to elucidate its composition, which is a fundamental part of the analysis carried out in the next section of this article.
The final vulnerability index – treated here as climate vulnerability – is calculated from the combination of the two dimensions presented above, measured by the 45 total indicators (Chen et al., 2015). In this index, the highest scores correspond to the best ratings in the climate vulnerability ranking and, consequently, to the lowest degrees of vulnerability, while the lowest scores correspond to the worst ratings in this index and, consequently, to the highest degrees of climate vulnerability. Figure 3 shows the climate vulnerability map with data from 2020 that were released in 2022. In the color grading, countries in dark green show a lower level of vulnerability, while countries in dark red show a higher level of vulnerability.
ND-GAIN also features the vulnerability matrix, which provides a visual tool for quickly comparing countries and tracking their progress through time. The matrix is divided into four quadrants, delineated by the median score of vulnerability across the countries and overall years, and the median score of readiness calculated the same way (Chen et al., 2023). Each country is, then, put into a quadrant that expresses its vulnerability and its readiness. It is not the objective of this article to discuss the climate vulnerability of each of the countries that will be studied in the last section, but it is to verify if there is any kind of correlation between the increase in the fragility of a State and the increase in its climate vulnerability. That said, the ND-GAIN vulnerability matrix will not be discussed in detail.
After discussing the concepts of State fragility, in the first section, and climate vulnerability, in the second section, and having presented the indexes that will be mobilized in this study, the following section aims to analyze the link between fragility and climate vulnerability.
The link between state fragility and climate vulnerability
In this section, in order to reach the proposed objective, the countries that became more fragile and less fragile in the FSI index, and that became more vulnerable and less vulnerable in the ND-GAIN in the same period will be analyzed. That said, Table 1 presents the ten countries that became more fragile and the ten countries that became less fragile according to the FSI between 2011 and 2020.
As ND-GAIN does not produce a report and ranking similar to those produced by the FSI, we used the raw data provided by the platform. From the set of 193 countries analyzed, we identified the ten that became more vulnerable and the ten that became less vulnerable between 2011 and 2020. The data from this research are systematized in Table 2.
As can be seen, in the lists of the ten countries that have become more fragile and more vulnerable, only Libya, the United States and Syria are repeated in both indexes. In the lists of the ten countries that have become less fragile and less vulnerable, only Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bhutan and Tajikistan are repeated. This little relation allowed us to infer that, looking at the rankings of the two indexes in the same period, it is not possible to state that there is a causal relation between them, either in one sense or another.
Aware of this inference, we made the movement presupposed in our hypothesis, which stated that state fragility increased a country's climate vulnerability and, consequently, reduced its readiness. Thus, we look at the ten countries that became more and less fragile, in order to verify if they followed the same direction in the general index of climate vulnerability. The result is systematized in Table 3.
In Table 3, the country column shows those who have become more and less fragile, according to the FSI. The variation column, in turn, concerns the variation of these countries in the ND-GAIN. As Table 3 shows, of the ten countries that have become more fragile, eight of them have also become more vulnerable, with the exception of Bahrain and the United Kingdom. And of the ten countries that became less fragile, nine of them also became less vulnerable, with the exception of Indonesia. Considering a similarity of 80% and 90%, respectively, between the indexes, it is possible to state that there is a causal relation between state fragility and climate vulnerability, and that countries that have become more fragile have also become more vulnerable, as well as countries that have become less fragile have also become less vulnerable.
It is now necessary to explain the three exceptions, which are: Bahrain and the United Kingdom, which have become more fragile, however, less vulnerable; and Indonesia, which has become less fragile but more vulnerable. To do this, we will specify the ND-GAIN indicators for each of the three countries to facilitate the understanding of the possible causes of these deviations. This information is shown in Table 3.
For each of these countries, three points stand out. Regarding to Bahrain, (1) it can be observed that the country has become less vulnerable in the general ND-GAIN index, as seen in Table 3; (2) in relation to the 6 sectors of vulnerability, the country became more vulnerable in 4 of them (ecosystem services, food, human habitat and infrastructure), as seen in Table 4. Of these four sectors, the one in which Bahrain was most vulnerable was food. Our research on these ND-GAIN data showed that of the six indicators of this sector of vulnerability, the one where Bahrain had the highest vulnerability in 2020 was “agricultural capacity”, with a score of 0.840, while the one where the country had the lowest vulnerability, also in 2020, was "rural population", with a score of 0.113; (3) however, its readiness increased in all three components of the index, especially in the economic one, which recorded the greatest variation among the three. In other words, Bahrain being an exception (a country that became more fragile, but less vulnerable), is explained by the economic factor,2 which pushed the general climate vulnerability index to a more favorable situation due to the increase in response capacity, even though the country has not actually become less vulnerable, considering only the six sectors.
Regarding to the United Kingdom, it can be observed that: 1) the country has become less vulnerable in the general ND-GAIN index, as seen in Table 3; 2) in relation to the 6 sectors of vulnerability, the country became more vulnerable in 3 of them (human habitat, infrastructure and water), as seen in Table 4. Of these four sectors, the one in which the United Kingdom was most vulnerable was human habitat. Our research on the ND-GAIN data showed that of the six indicators of this sector of vulnerability, the one where the UK had the highest vulnerability in 2020 was “urban concentration”, with a score of 0.826, while the one where the country had the lowest vulnerability, also in 2020, was "paved roads", with a score of 0; 3) however, its readiness had a significant increase in the economic component, although in the other components there was no increase. That is, the United Kingdom being an exception (a country that became more fragile, but less vulnerable), is also explained by the economic factor, which pulled the general climate vulnerability index to a more favorable situation, due to the increase in response capacity, even if the country has not actually become less vulnerable, considering only the six sectors.
Finally, regarding to Indonesia, it can be observed that: 1) the country has become more vulnerable in the general ND-GAIN index, as seen in Table 3; 2) in relation to the 6 sectors of vulnerability, the country became less vulnerable in 5 of them (ecosystem services, food, human habitat, health and infrastructure), as seen in Table 4. Of these four sectors, the one in which Indonesia was most vulnerable was also food. Our research on these ND-GAIN data showed that of the six indicators of this sector of vulnerability, the one where Indonesia had the highest vulnerability in 2020 was also “agricultural capacity”, with a score of 0.996, while the one where the country had the lowest vulnerability, also in 2020, was "food import dependency", with a score of 0.196; 3) however, its readiness had a significant decrease in the economic component, although in the other components there was an increase. That is, the case of Indonesia, which is also an exception (a country that has become less fragile, but more vulnerable), can also be explained by the economic factor, which pushed the general vulnerability index to a less favorable situation, as it generated a worsening in its response capacity, even though the country has not actually become more vulnerable, considering only the six sectors.
Conclusion
The objective of this article was to verify if there is any kind of correlation between the increase in the fragility of a State and the increase in its climate vulnerability. We began by contextualizing both phenomena – state fragility and climate vulnerability – as well as their main causes, characteristics and consequences.
Using the two main indexes, Fragile States Index (FSI) and University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index (ND-GAIN), we presented the ten countries that most increased and decreased their fragilities between 2011 and 2020. Then, we compared these data with the variation in the degree of climate vulnerability of these same States, in the same period.
Of the ten countries that most increased their State fragility in the period, eight of them also became more vulnerable in relation to the climate (with the exception of Bahrain and the United Kingdom). Among the countries that most reduced their fragility, only one of them, Indonesia, increased its climate vulnerability. At first, we concluded that there is indeed a direct proportionality relation between an increase or decrease in the degree of fragility of the selected countries and an increase or decrease in its degrees of climate vulnerability. Despite this conclusion, however, it was necessary to explain the exceptions found.
As we looked more deeply at the performance of these exceptions in the ND- -GAIN, we were able to see that all three countries that escaped this rule could be understood by the economic factor. Bahrain and the United Kingdom, despite having increased their fragility in the period and reduced vulnerability, had a positive economic performance, which directly affected these countries' ability to respond to climate variations and, therefore, reduced their vulnerability. The same logic, however in reverse, explains the exception of Indonesia. The country has reduced its fragility and increased its vulnerability. But, it had a poor economic performance in the period, which negatively affected its capacity to respond to climate change, thus increasing its climate vulnerability.
We can conclude, therefore, that there is indeed a proportional relation between changes in the degree of fragility of a country and its degree of climate vulnerability. In principle, as a country becomes more fragile, its vulnerability to climate change increases. When a country decreases its fragility, there is also a decrease in its vulnerability to climate change. However, we also need to consider the economic performance of these countries. It was identified that countries that increase their fragility, but manage to maintain a good economic performance (as was the case of Bahrain and the United Kingdom), have increased their capacity to respond to climate change and, therefore, the increase in fragility is not accompanied by an increased vulnerability to climate change. And, when a country reduces its fragility, but continues to present low economic performance (as in the case of Indonesia), the capacity to respond to climate change ends up being impaired, meaning that the improvement in the level of fragility is not accompanied by progress in vulnerability indexes.
Thus, there is a direct proportional relation between State fragility and climate vulnerability, as long as economic indicators follow the improvement or worsening of this fragility. If the economy goes in the opposite direction to the increase or decrease in fragility, the relation between the degree of fragility and vulnerability can become inverse, due to the economic factor having a direct impact (positive or negative) on the dimension of readiness measured by the ND-GAIN. That is, if we are concerned that the worsening condition of a country's fragility could make it more vulnerable to climate change, or if we want to improve the degree of vulnerability of a State by reducing its fragility, we should always be attentive to the specificity of its economic performance. Apparently, this is the only factor that can compromise the direct relation of proportionality between the two phenomena studied by directly impacting the states' capacity to respond to climate change.
Our efforts in this article allowed us to reach the conclusions listed above. Evidently, there is much to explore in the link between state fragility and climate vulnerability, such as domestic elements of countries that are exceptions and that can help in understanding the broad panorama. In addition, we hope to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between these two phenomena that severely affect so many countries in the world today, worsening inequalities and deteriorating human security.
Acknowledgements
This work was carried out with the support of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (Capes).
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Notes
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1
In Table 4, for the dimension of vulnerability, scores closer to 1 express greater vulnerability, while those closer to 0 express less vulnerability. For the readiness dimension, scores closer to 1 express greater readiness, while those closer to 0 express less readiness.
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2
Bahrain is one of the Middle East countries whose economy is profoundly influenced by oil. As discussed by Mazaheri (2023), the discovery of oil in the early part of the twentieth century catapulted the Middle East countries and their economies into the modern era.
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Data availability statement:
All the data supporting the results of this study were published in the article itself.
Edited by
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Editors:
Lucia Bógus and Luiz César de Queiroz Ribeiro
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Organizers of this issue:
Ana Marcela Ardila Pinto, Carlos Fernando Ferreira Lobo, Natália Villamizar Duarte
All the data supporting the results of this study were published in the article itself.
Source: 
Source: elaborated by the authors from 
Source: