Climate Change Strategies and Developing
Nations: Prospects and Priorities for India
P.J. Dilip Kumar
Abstract It is now accepted by the majority of people that climate change due to
human activities is going to be a reality in the very near future, and that we may
even currently be seeing some of the early manifestations in the form of increased
fluctuations in weather and related phenomena, frequent extremes like excess
rainfall leading to floods or deficiencies resulting in droughts, accelerated melting
of glaciers and so on. It is no longer easy to ignore the warning signs that human
pressure on the environment and natural resources is at unprecedented levels, and
the damage to property and lives is also becoming unacceptably high because of the
high populations, huge amount of built infrastructure, high financial stakes in
extractive industries and so on.
Keywords Climate change Á Greenhouse gases Á Development strategy Á Natural
resources Á Forest Á Carbon sequestration Á IPCC Á REDD
All this leads to a heightened concern to find ways to reduce or slow down the impacts
of climate change through mitigative and adaptive measures. As can be seen from
successive international meetings on climate change, agreement has still not been
reached on the balance between gross and per capita consumption of environmental
resources and the concomitant obligations to the world at large of each country.
A developing country like India is faced with the twin problems of low per
capita consumption levels (which demands a manyfold stepping up of use of natural
Paper prepared for the “International Conference on Climate Change and
Social-Ecological-Economic Interface-Building”, May 20–21, 2015, organized by the Centre
for Ecological Economics and Natural Resources (CEENR), Institute for Social and Economic
Change (ISEC), Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru-560072, India.
P.J. Dilip Kumar (&)
Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Nagarbhavi,
Bangalore 560072, India
e-mail: pjdilip@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
S. Nautiyal et al. (eds.), Climate Change Challenge (3C)
and Social-Economic-Ecological Interface-Building, Environmental Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31014-5_3
25
Nations: Prospects and Priorities for India
P.J. Dilip Kumar
Abstract It is now accepted by the majority of people that climate change due to
human activities is going to be a reality in the very near future, and that we may
even currently be seeing some of the early manifestations in the form of increased
fluctuations in weather and related phenomena, frequent extremes like excess
rainfall leading to floods or deficiencies resulting in droughts, accelerated melting
of glaciers and so on. It is no longer easy to ignore the warning signs that human
pressure on the environment and natural resources is at unprecedented levels, and
the damage to property and lives is also becoming unacceptably high because of the
high populations, huge amount of built infrastructure, high financial stakes in
extractive industries and so on.
Keywords Climate change Á Greenhouse gases Á Development strategy Á Natural
resources Á Forest Á Carbon sequestration Á IPCC Á REDD
All this leads to a heightened concern to find ways to reduce or slow down the impacts
of climate change through mitigative and adaptive measures. As can be seen from
successive international meetings on climate change, agreement has still not been
reached on the balance between gross and per capita consumption of environmental
resources and the concomitant obligations to the world at large of each country.
A developing country like India is faced with the twin problems of low per
capita consumption levels (which demands a manyfold stepping up of use of natural
Paper prepared for the “International Conference on Climate Change and
Social-Ecological-Economic Interface-Building”, May 20–21, 2015, organized by the Centre
for Ecological Economics and Natural Resources (CEENR), Institute for Social and Economic
Change (ISEC), Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru-560072, India.
P.J. Dilip Kumar (&)
Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Nagarbhavi,
Bangalore 560072, India
e-mail: pjdilip@gmail.com
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
S. Nautiyal et al. (eds.), Climate Change Challenge (3C)
and Social-Economic-Ecological Interface-Building, Environmental Science,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31014-5_3
25