Seite - (000024) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

streams of water from the glaciers and rainfall patterns become more erratic. Terrestrial, marine and freshwater species have started to alter their geographical rangeandmigrationpatterns, and their abundancehas started tobeaffected. IPCC projections indicate that climate changewill in the future undermine foodproduc- tion throughchangedweatherpatternsandecosystemimpacts.Notably,production of threemaincrops that sustainhumanity–wheat, rice andmaize– isprojected to be negatively affected. Similarly, fisheries productivitywill likely be challenged, adding to the problems caused by overfishing. A large proportion of both animal and plant species will face extinction thus exacerbating the loss of biological diversity. Human health may also be affected negatively, as a warmer climate will facilitate the spread of vector borne and tropical diseases to higher latitudes. Extreme weather and climate events are on the rise. These include increased frequency and intensity of storms, as well as climatic variability. While rainfall will increase insomeareas,otherswill facemore frequentandprolongeddroughts. Climate risk and vulnerability vary considerably between different regions and groups.Coastalareasaregenerallythemostvulnerableduetostormsandsealevelrise and associated saline intrusions to coastal ecosystems and aquifers.More andmore people are concentrated in coastal areas: it is estimated thatmore than 40%of the world’speople livewithin100kmfromthecoastandover thepastdecademore than 60%of disaster losses have occurred in coastal areas (DasGupta and Shaw 2016). Despite these losses, concentrationof theworld populationon coasts continues. The worst affected are low-lying coastal countries,which are exposed to rising seas and increasing storms. Small island developing states and poor countries, such as Bangladesh, face challenges of survival, but also rich countries like theNetherlands must invest increasing resources to dealwith coastal hazards.A large proportion of major cities are located in the coastal areas and, thus, exposed to climate related hazards. Cities, such as London, NewYork and Tokyo are all coastal, but so are megacities in the poorer regions of the world: Lagos, Kolkata, Dhaka, Jakarta and others.Their ability to copewithandadapt to climate relateddisasters and rising sea levels ismuch lower. Similarly,mountain and highland areas experience the risk of climatechangeacutely.Theyare thewater towersof theworldandhome to someof thepoorest people in theworld (FAO2015).Theyaredoublyvulnerable in termsof global freshwater availability and local food security.Adaptive capacity andvulner- ability havedeep social, economic andpolitical determinants (Pelling 2011).Risk is definedas a functionofhazard exposure andvulnerability to it (Wisner et al. 2004). Apart fromdirectphysical factors,vulnerabilityhasastrongsocialdimension:people with fewer economicmeans and political power have less ability to copewith and recover from disasters. In addition, they are often confined to living in the most hazardousplaces,suchas informalsettlementsondenudedslopes(Surjanetal.2016). It is incumbentuponus todealwithclimatechange inacomprehensivemanner. There is a need to address the root causes of climate change tomitigate it. IPCC links anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to keydrivers that include: popula- tionsize,economicactivity, lifestyle,energyuse, landusepatterns, technologyand climatepolicy.All aredirectly related tovirtuallyall aspectsofhumanactivityand aspirations.Associetiesget richer, their energyuseandemissions tend to increase. There is therefore a compelling need for decoupling economic growth from 1 EvaluatingClimateChangeAction forSustainableDevelopment: Introduction 3