Climate change and coastal aquaculture farmers’ risk perceptions: experiences from Bangladesh and Denmark

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of risk perception in relation to climate change threats, comparison of risk perceptions in two different regions, and derives general results of what affect peoples’ level of risk perceptions. Revelation of individual risk perception is essential for local acceptance and cooperation. We do this by a comparative study with Bangladesh shrimp farmers and Danish mussel farmers. Since these people live on the edge of subsistence, already small changes in the climate will affect them significantly. Farmers in both developed and developing economies are concerned about global climate change but there are significant differences in farmers’ perceptions of the causes of global climate change in developed and developing countries.

Keywords:

• climate change
• policy
• risk perception

Notes

1 Many people confuse the two events, partly because the hole in the ozone layer is scientifically well-established, easy to imagine and remember, and linked to climate change even by popular information sources (Ungar 2000).

2 However, CO₂ emissions through forest conversion have contributed to climate change in developed countries in the past, and still contributes to it in some developing countries.