Simulating Climate Change And Livelihood Security

This book identifies and provides reasoning for computed methods of local climate dynamics and the livelihood vulnerability indices assessment in the mountainous region of Himachal Pradesh, India. The outcomes of this study agree with the focused objectives on simulating climate change and its impact on livelihood security. It deals with several crucial methodologies to analyze livelihood security with and without climate change. The explorative deductive approach was used to observe climatic changes since the 1970s and simulated the climate until 2080. Additionally, the composite livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) without climate change and the climate change livelihood vulnerability index (CCLVI) with climate change impact were prepared. The book is beneficial for policymakers who are involved in framing and implementing policies chiefly in the Himalaya. It is also valuable for all stakeholders in society: students, researchers and academicians. It proposes discussions and debate on a new, integrated, inclusive and open approach to climate change and validates the significance of geographic knowledge in addressing climate change issues at various levels, suggesting policy measures to cope with them.

UN publications sales number E.08.III.S.4.Recent empirical studies have found that climate variability and migration are characterized by a non-linear relationship. This study explores the climate change impacts on migratory processes. It outlines the key elements of natural and human induced climate change of potential relevance to migration, discusses the current state of debate about the relationship between climate change and migration, and describes possible approaches and methodologies with which to further our understanding of climate change-related migration.

Climate change is the defining development challenge of our time. More than a global environmental issue, climate change and variability threaten to reverse recent progress in poverty reduction and economic growth. Both now and over the long run, climate change and variability threatens human and social development by restricting the fulfillment of human potential and by disempowering people and communities in reducing their livelihoods options. Communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences from climate change and variability. Precipitation has increased in the southeastern part of South America, and now often comes in the form of sudden deluges, leading to flooding and soil erosion that endanger people s lives and livelihoods. Southwestern parts of South America and western Central America are seeing a decrease in precipitation and an increase in droughts. Increasing heat and drought in Northeast Brazil threaten the livelihoods of already-marginal smallholders, and may turn parts of the eastern Amazon rainforest into savannah. The Andean inter-tropical glaciers are shrinking and expected to disappear altogether within the next 20-40 years, with significant consequences for water availability. These environmental changes will impact local livelihoods in unprecedented ways. Poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration are and will be measurably affected by climate change. Using an innovative research methodology, this study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions. Many already poor regions are becoming poorer; traditional livelihoods are being challenged in unprecedented ways; water scarcity is increasing, particularly in poor arid areas; human health is deteriorating; and climate-induced migration is already taking place and may increase. Successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. This volume offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.

'Sound and solid case studies on vulnerability and adaptation have been woefully lacking in the international discourse on climate change. This set of books begins to bridge the gap.' Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme 'Important reading for students and practitioners alike.' Martin Parry, Co-Chair, Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 'Fills an important gap in our understanding ... It is policy-relevant and deserves to be widely read.' Richard Klein, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its 2001 report that much of the developing world is highly vulnerable to adverse impacts from climate change. But the IPCC also concluded that the vulnerabilities of developing countries are too little studied and too poorly understood to enable determination of adaptation strategies that would be effective at reducing risks. These authoritative volumes, resulting from the work of the Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) project launched by the IPCC in 2002, are the first to provide a comprehensive investigation of the issues at stake. Climate Change and Vulnerability discusses who is vulnerable to climate change, the nature of their vulnerability and the causes of their vulnerability for parts of the world that have been poorly researched until now. Climate Change and Adaptation covers current practices for managing climate risks to food security, water resources, livelihoods, human health and infrastructure, needs for effective management of climate risks, the changing nature of the risks, strategies for adaptation, and the need to integrate these strategies into development planning and resource management.

'Sound and solid case studies on vulnerability and adaptation have been woefully lacking in the international discourse on climate change. This set of books begins to bridge the gap.' Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of United Nations Environment Programme 'Important reading for students and practitioners alike.' Martin Parry, Co-Chair, Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 'Fills an important gap in our understanding ... It is policy-relevant and deserves to be widely read.' Richard Klein, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its 2001 report that much of the developing world is highly vulnerable to adverse impacts from climate change. But the IPCC also concluded that the vulnerabilities of developing countries are too little studied and too poorly understood to enable determination of adaptation strategies that would be effective at reducing risks. These authoritative volumes, resulting from the work of the Assessments of Impacts and Adaptations to Climate Change (AIACC) project launched by the IPCC in 2002, are the first to provide a comprehensive investigation of the issues at stake. Climate Change and Vulnerability discusses who is vulnerable to climate change, the nature of their vulnerability and the causes of their vulnerability for parts of the world that have been poorly researched until now. Climate Change and Adaptation covers current practices for managing climate risks to food security, water resources, livelihoods, human health and infrastructure, needs for effective management of climate risks, the changing nature of the risks, strategies for adaptation, and the need to integrate these strategies into development planning and resource management.

This book provides the first systematic critique of the concept of climate change adaptation within the field of international development. Drawing on a reworked political ecology framework, it argues that climate is not something ‘out there’ that we adapt to. Instead, it is part of the social and biophysical forces through which our lived environments are actively yet unevenly produced. From this original foundation, the book challenges us to rethink the concepts of climate change, vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity in transformed ways. With case studies drawn from Pakistan, India and Mongolia, it demonstrates concretely how climatic change emerges as a dynamic force in the ongoing transformation of contested rural landscapes. In crafting this synthesis, the book recalibrates the frameworks we use to envisage climatic change in the context of contemporary debates over development, livelihoods and poverty. With its unique theoretical contribution and case study material, this book will appeal to researchers and students in environmental studies, sociology, geography, politics and development studies.

Roughly a billion people around the world continue to live in state of chronic hunger and food insecurity. Unfortunately, efforts to improve their livelihoods must now unfold in the context of a rapidly changing climate, in which warming temperatures and changing rainfall regimes could threaten the basic productivity of the agricultural systems on which most of the world’s poor directly depend. But whether climate change represents a minor impediment or an existential threat to development is an area of substantial controversy, with different conclusions wrought from different methodologies and based on different data. This book aims to resolve some of the controversy by exploring and comparing the different methodologies and data that scientists use to understand climate’s effects on food security. In explains the nature of the climate threat, the ways in which crops and farmers might respond, and the potential role for public and private investment to help agriculture adapt to a warmer world. This broader understanding should prove useful to both scientists charged with quantifying climate threats, and policy-makers responsible for crucial decisions about how to respond. The book is especially suitable as a companion to an interdisciplinary undergraduate or graduate level class.

In this unique and innovative contribution to environmental security, an international team of scholars explore and estimate the intermediate-term security risks that climate change may pose for the United States, its allies and partners, and for regional and global order through the year 2030. In profiles of forty-two key countries and regions, each contributor considers the problems that climate change will pose for existing institutions and practices. By focusing on the conduct of individual states or groups of nations, the results add new precision to our understanding of the way environmental stress may be translated into political, social, economic, and military challenges in the future. Countries and regions covered in the book include China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Central Asia, the European Union, the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Turkey, the Maghreb, West Africa, Southern Africa, the Northern Andes, and Brazil.