Paper short abstract:

Religion is a sensitive and personal topic, which influences people’s worldviews so strongly that it can encourage behaviour that increases risk of climate variability and natural hazards. What conditions would facilitate a shift in worldview to incorporate a risk reduction?

Paper long abstract:

Evidence from around the world indicates that belief systems, particularly religion, can be a determinant of people's vulnerability to climate variability and natural hazards because it influences behaviour that leads to exposure and sensitivity to hazards. Most studies have characterised this as a barrier to risk reduction, and few (none) have offered any suggestions for how to move beyond it, because of the ethical dilemma posed by influencing others' beliefs for the purpose of reducing risk. At the same time, other studies have documented people overcoming cultural taboos in the face of climate variability and natural hazards, including abandoning strict social structures, and conforming to parallel and occasionally contradictory belief systems as a way to overcome culturally imposed restrictions on behaviour.

This paper explores questions on how to go beyond this dilemma, asking: what conditions facilitate cultural shifts? How do people justify these shifts or parallel belief systems? Are these conditions that can be mimicked by a project or an outsider, in order to help reduce vulnerability to climate variability and extreme natural hazards? Can we actually enable the conditions that facilitate cultural shifts that enable the reduction of vulnerability to climate variability and extreme natural hazards? Out of necessity, it also explores how we can identify the relative importance of a belief system in vulnerability to climate variability and extreme events.