Improving Sustainability of the Environment in a Changing Climate

The mechanism of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks is emerging as one of the current efforts and actions being developed by the international climate change community to mitigate climate change. This chapter highlights the potentials as well as the challenges of this mechanism to reduce forest loss and improve the health and sustainability of the environment. Main potentials include its resolve to make trees worth more standing than cut, the transfer of funds to support conservation efforts and a focus on delivering social benefits. The main challenges include the less attention on unclear tenure and benefit-sharing framework; weak institutions and the complex historical, political and structural interests which have allowed powerful groups to expropriate the forest resources and trade-offs that may arise during implementation. It then outlines four broad areas where researchers can make contributions in national and local level policy-making and interventions related to REDD+.

Sustainable Forest Use and India's Economic Growth

This paper assesses the prospect of sustainable forest management (SFM) for an emerging economy like India, where forest coverage has gone up over the last three decades in spite of population growth, rapid urbanization and fast economic growth. To assess the possibility of sustainable future growth in a globally congenial environment, the extent of ecological stress on Indian economy has been assessed by using Input-Output transaction tables and pattern of expenditure by the Government and the Private sector along with Import and Export of forestry and related products over 1993-94 to 2007-08. The change in direct forest intensity (DFI) in gross domestic product has been calculated and decomposed into effects due to material intensity, structural change and economic growth. The results reveal increasing dominance of economic growth over other effects indicating necessity of designing intervention to decouple potential future economic growth from forest resources to ensure long run sustainability.

Does Fiscal Policy Influence Per Capita CO2 Emission?

Encouraging economic activities is a major motivation for countries to disburse subsidies, but such transfers may also lead to sustainability and climate change related concerns. Through a cross-country empirical analysis involving 131 countries over 1990-2010, the present analysis observes that higher proportional devolution of budgetary subsidies lead to higher CO2 emissions. The results demonstrate that structure of economy is a crucial determinant for per capita CO2 emission, as countries having higher share in agriculture and services in GDP are characterized by lower per capita CO2 emission and vice versa. The empirical findings also underline the importance of the type of government subsidy devolution on CO2 emissions. Countries having high tax-GDP ratio are marked by lower per capita CO2 emission, implying that government budgetary subsidy is detrimental for environment whereas tax is conducive for sustainability. The analysis underlines the importance of limiting devolution of subsidies both in developed and developing countries.

Climate Change and Adaptation through the Lens of Capability Approach

Climate Change impacts would disproportionately have larger impacts on the developing countries. Both government and development agencies have initiated various adaptation strategies in the developing countries to enhance the adaptation of the local communities. Various policies and programmes have been designed keeping in mind the impact of climate change. This study was conducted in Darjeeling district of West Bengal, India, to see the benefits of such policies and programmes. Focus group discussion with community members were held in the study area. Based on the fieldwork it was seen that most of the intervention made in the study area focused on income, resources, and assets. It has failed to benefits the people due to variation in the capability among various section of the society. Various projects related to health, education, housing, and livelihood, have been implemented in the study region. However, due to lack of conversion factors in the form of gender inequality, discriminatory practices, transparency among others have come as a hindrance in the successful implementation of the projects. Hence, such project-based approach to enhance community's adaptation to climate risk, in the end fails to show benefits as it fails to expand community's capabilities and real freedom, due to the project's pre-defined aims. It is important to understand community's as agent of change rather than merely beneficiaries of adaptation projects. This study therefore recommends that to enhance community's adaptation to climate change, the interventions should be such that it enlarges the range of people's choices so that when climate disaster strikes them they will have a set of opportunities.

Coastal Poverty, Resource-Dependent Livelihood, Climate Change, and Adaptation

Millions of people in Sunderbans generate their livelihood and sustenance through fishing, honey collection, fuel wood and timber. The paper attempts to examine the issues of coastal poverty, food security as well as livelihood insecurity and the adaptation options that help to the resilience of climate change. The paper is based on field survey conducted in the villages of Sunderans in 2011. The study revealed that fishing and crab collection, honey collection are the important sources of livelihood. The fishing resources have been declining which leads to the insecurity of livelihoods of the fishing communities. The study has identified the key adaptations like dependency of money lenders, fishing and crab collection, formation of Self Help Groups, livestock rearing and migration. This paper has important policy implications for poverty, livelihood vulnerability and migration.

Climate Change and Agriculture

Increasing evidence shows that shifts in Earth's climate have already occurred and indicates that changes will continue in the coming years. This chapter is an attempt to distil what is known about the likely effects of climate change on food security and nutrition in coming decades. Apart from few exceptions, the likely impacts of climate change on agricultural sector in the future are not understood in any great depth. There are many uncertainties as to how changes in temperature, rainfall and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will interact in relation to agricultural productivity. The consequences of climate change on various important aspects of agriculture such as crop production, livestock, availability of water, pest and diseases etc. are discussed and summarized. Each of this aspect of agriculture sector will have certain impact which may be positive or negative. The chapter also discusses on the possible mitigation measures and adaptations for agriculture production in the future climate change scenarios.

Adaptation to Climate Change for Sustainable Development

Climate change is an important global issue. For sustainable development human society must adopt the climate change and reduce vulnerability. This chapter provides an overview on the climate change and its effects, in response how human societies adopt it across the globe. Chapter reviews major papers on adaptation to climate change. Based on major important articles this chapter provides clarity of the concept of adaptation, types of adaptation, measurement of adaptation and determinants of adaptive capacity. It also highlights on sustainable development and shows possible future directions of adaptation and limitations.

Vulnerability to Local Climate Change

The paper analyses the perceptions of the farmers on various aspects of present as well as future vulnerability to local climate change in western Odisha, India. The changes in various climatic factors like rainfall, temperature, drought frequency and intensity during last three decades have been assessed. The farmers' experiences on hardships faced, natural and human induced causes of the changes observed have been examined. The perceptions on changes/trend in various vulnerability factors such as water availability, soil quality, early warning system, deforestation, social safety nets, institutional support system, degradation of wild life habitat, loss of wetland and water bodies, and damage to plant species etc. have been scrutinized. Besides, the future vulnerability to climate change has been assessed by ranking the vulnerability factors (economic/environmental/social/institutional) with respect to their effects during past, present and future climatic risks in the matrix form, thereby identifying the vulnerability factors posing greater threat in future. The study is based on the survey of 139 households. The study finds significant changes in behavior of climatic factors in western Odisha. The factors that are posing greater threat in future are increasing temperature and rainfall variability, frequent pest attack and plant diseases, gradual decline in grazing land and fodder availability, reduction and degradation of wild life habitat and loss of wetland and water bodies.

Heat Stress Vulnerability among Indian Workmen

The average global temperature increase is estimated to go up by 1.8-4.0 0C by the next century. This climate change ought to affect populations where the burden of climate-sensitive disease is high – such as the urban poor in low- and middle-income countries. Particularly in industrial applications, heat generates during manufacturing process. This heat transmits to the environment to make it hotter, as well as the community, especially affecting workers involved in the operation. The primary outcomes of working in such environment leads to three kinds of major heat-related disorders-heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Understanding the quantifiable volume of health impacts due to work habits in hot working environment would provide multiple avenues of suitable intervention. Elucidating the multiple avenues of work pattern, physical and physiological attributes would generate knowledgebase and yield numerically defined susceptibility limits of workers occupational front. The present chapter provides directions to research into the heat related health profile of Indian workmen which would ascertain the relative vulnerability of different occupational groups to their workplace heat eventuality.

Climate Change, Human Health and Some Economic Issues

This chapter attempts to correlate different economic issues like inequality, poverty, green infrastructure and international trade with human health in the context of climate change. In this short survey not only we have tried to capture most of the relevant articles in the corresponding category, but also we have shouted for some of the major research gaps in the form of future research agenda. Interestingly from our short survey we have found that importance of developing as well as less developed economies have been neglected in the context of climate change.