Foreword
Preface
Author(s): Rajendra K Pachauri
Source: Environmental threats, vulnerability, and adaptation: case studies from India Authored By TERI
Abstract:
The issue of vulnerability and adaptation acquires great importance in the context of the impacts of climate change. The Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the IPCC clearly put forward the prospect that irrespective of what happens globally in mitigation of emissions of greenhouse gases, the world will face climate change for a long time to come extending possibly over centuries. Consequently, adaptation would have to be a significant part of the strategy for dealing with climate change, requiring a clear assessment of vulnerability of different locations as well as the impacts on ecosystems and communities which are vulnerable. It is important that in analysing this issue and mapping out different options, we do not see the issue of vulnerability and adaptation in isolation of past experience. The world has dealt with naturallyinduced climate change in the past, and even more so with extreme weather events that have produced harmful impacts on ecosystems and human civilization over the years. Consequently, our knowledge on how to deal with human-induced climate change and its undesirable impacts would be strengthened considerably by an assessment of how ecosystems and human communities have dealt with naturally-induced climate change phenomena in the past.
Publisher/Organisation: TERI Press
Publication Date: 3 March 2004