Climate Change: the Human Aspect

Climate change is high on the international agenda with many predicting that it would be the biggest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Nations, both developed and developing, are engaged in intense discussions on how to mitigate the impact of this emerging meta – catastrophe. The discussions have been, by and large, at the global macrolevel while not as much attention has been on regionallevel and groundlevel issues. The book looks at both the aspects, the macroglobal as well as the microlocal. At the regional level it looks at the South and Southeast Asian regions while at the local level it looks mainly at agriculture and the impact on poor and vulnerable sections. Some suggested measures for adapting to climate change are made since whatever mitigation measures are taken today we have to live with climate change till at least 2050. These include outofthebox solutions like organic farming, collective use of water and other scarce resources like pasture land, recording of best local practices in arid and semiarid areas etc. Extracts from the latest IPCC Report, UNDP Human Development Report that are relevant to the South and Southeast Asian region are also annexed.