ABSTRACT
Island populations have typically been perceived as somehow inherently socially vulnerable to climate change. Despite the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) conclusion that vulnerability is variable because of diversity in human attributes, there is a widely assumed causal relationship between physical vulnerability, and the emergence of a new class of vulnerable, climatically impacted people, so-called 'climate refugees'. For island populations, reduced emissions of greenhouse gases globally and adaptation to climate change in place therefore remains the most important way to address climate change vulnerabilities. The integration of climate change into wider international governance on development, human rights, and so on, is in its infancy. The vulnerability of inhabitants of islands is only partially shaped by absence of legal protections in the context of exposure to climate risk, and there is a broad geopolitics of knowledge, global capital, mobility, and international governance at work.
