Environmental And Climate Change In South And Southeast Asia

Environmental and Climate Change in South and Southeast Asia offers a cultural studies' perspective on how local cultures cope with climate changes and environmental crises. The focus is on Hindu India, Islamic Indonesia, Buddhist Thailand, and Himalayan glaciers.

This volume showcases the diversity of the politics and practices of climate change governance across Southeast Asia. Through a series of country-level case studies and regional perspectives, the authors in this volume explore the complexities and contested nature of climate governance in what can be considered as one of the most dynamic and multi-faceted regions of the world. They reflect upon the tensions between authoritarian and democratic climate change governance, the multiple roles of civil society and non-state interventions, and the conflicts between state planning and market-driven climate change governance. Shedding light on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts in Southeast Asia, this book presents the various formal and informal institutions of climate change governance, their relevant actors, procedures, and policies. Empirical findings from a diverse set of environments are merged into a cross-country comparison that allows for elaborating on similar patterns whilst at the same time highlighting the distinct features of climate change governance in Southeast Asia. Drawing on case studies from all Southeast Asian countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam, this book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners dealing with climate change and environmental governance.

This book is the first to present a regional analysis of climate change and human health, focusing on geographically and socio-economically distinct countries of South and Southeast Asia. It has a major focus on India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and Taiwan. Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to human health. lt represents a range of environmental hazards and will affect populations in both the developed and developing countries. In particular, it affects the regions where the current burden of climate-sensitive diseases are high, which is the case in South and Southeast Asian countries.

This book highlights the current issues, challenges, and priorities for climate change adaptation in the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The status of each country was prepared by a consortium of researchers in consultation with National Focal Points of the ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change (AWGCC). National documents on adaptation actions, including local scenario and priorities, were reviewed where available and supplemented with an assessment of scientific publications to identify vulnerable ecosystems and regions. Adaptation needs and priorities were determined through stakeholder consultation in the respective countries. This allows for local-level perspectives to be captured and brought to the attention of policy and decision-makers at the national and regional levels. An important lesson from this exercise is that universities and research institutions at the national level have a critical role to play in bridging the gap between science and policy in climate change adaptation. These institutions also have the capacity to continuously facilitate transfer of the best available science for advancing climate change adaptation at the local level.

This book, focuses on South and Southeast Asia, upgrades our understanding of the influence of multiple sociopolitical and governance factors on climate change and risks. Moving beyond science and technology-oriented discussions on climate change, it argues that the real solutions to climate change problems lie in societies, governance systems, non-state actors, and the power and politics underpinning these systems. It presents a range of detailed conceptual, empirical, and policy-oriented insights from different nations of South and Southeast Asia, including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, Maldives, and Bhutan. The chapters bring forth critical discussions of climate change, covering a diverse range of topics including livelihoods, gender, community perspectives, relocation, resilience, local politics, climate change communication, governance, and policy responses. By investigating climate change vulnerabilities and as well as offering feasible solutions to the states and other non-state actors in responding to climate change and risks, this book deepens our existing knowledge of the social and political dimensions of climate change. With interdisciplinary perspectives, this book will appeal to all students, researchers, and scholars of environmental studies, geography, disaster studies, sociology, policy studies, development studies, and political science. It provides valuable reading to practitioners, policymakers, and professionals working in related fields.

This publication reviews the economics of climate change in Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It confirms that the region is highly vulnerable to climate change, demonstrates that a wide range of adaptation measures are already being applied, and that it has great potential to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions globally. It shows that the cost to the region and globally of taking no early action against climate change far outweighs the cost of action. The publication urges Southeast Asia to play an important part in working toward a global solution to climate change, and to apply all feasible and economically viable adaptation and mitigation measures as key elements of poverty reduction and sustainable development strategies. It also argues that the current global economic crisis offers Southeast Asia an opportunity to start a transition towards a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy by introducing green stimulus programs that can simultaneously shore up economies, create jobs, reduce poverty, lower carbon emissions, and prepare for the worst effects of climate change.

Environmental Change in South-East Asia brings together scholars, journalists, consultants and NGO activists to explore the interaction of people, politics and ecology. Ostensibly "green" activities - plantation forestry, eco-tourism, hydro-electricity - are revealed as guises used by elites to promote their own political and economic interests. Highlighting fatal flaws in presently exclusive economic and ecological approaches, the authors stress that neither the quest for sustainable development nor the process of environmental change itself can be understood without reference to political processes.

Among the themes discussed in this text are: European and indigenous perceptions of the environment; historical processes of environmental change; the politics of resource use; ecotourism and development; deforestation and smallholding.