Adaptation and Impacts

Climate Change is now recognised as a potential threat to sustainable livelihoods. Since the last few decades the average surface temperatures of the earth has risen appreciably as a result of continued emissions of green house gases causing changes in the atmosphere. These changes are being manifested through erratic weather patterns and impacts in many part of the world and particularly in tropical regions . This phenomenon can have serious implications for biological diversity as well as significant social and economic impacts on the livelihood patterns of people particularly those living in the tropical regions. According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) average global temperatures are further likely to increase by 1-6.4 C by 2100.

Increasingly the effects of such global warming is being attributed to anthropogenic activities. The consequences of such warming has resulted in atmospheric changes leading to extreme weather events like cyclones, storms, droughts etc.

South Asian countries including India will particularly be vulnerable to climate change impacts . Some of the probable impacts that have been identified include changes in temperature and rainfall regime, agriculture yields, sea level rise, extreme weather events, melting of glaciers, changes in ecosystem function ,forest fires, wildlife conservation ,shifts in species distribution etc. Of late some of these impacts are being felt with greater frequency in the Indian subcontinent e.g. extreme weather events such as cyclones on India’s eastern coast and droughts in the western states of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Serious health related problems are also being attributed to climate impacts include outbreaks of vector borne diseases like malaria.

The Indian subcontinent is one of the most populous regions of the world. Despite economic reforms and liberalization, the region’s per capita income continues to be one of the lowest in the world. The ability of society to cope with climate impacts depends on various factors like capacity, education, information and clean technologies available for that country. In the face of this, developing adaptive strategies at local, national and regional level for limiting climate change is a prerequisite and requires intervention across several sectors . The various policy planning measures should be integrated with long term social and technological changes so as to make a realistic effort at adaptation .

WWF-India implements field projects which study the potential impacts of Climate Change on our vulnerable ecosystems in ecoregions like the Sundarbans and the Himalayas. The programme is also working with a diverse range of stakeholders to develop and implement adaptation strategies to build the resilience of ecosystems and communities.