Natural processes have over the millenniums driven changes in climate, and these mechanisms continue to cause change. However, “Climate change” as a term in academic and policy usage is now taken to mean anthropogenically driven change in climate. The world’s leading experts working under the aegis of the IPCC have recently concludedthat increases in global mean surface temperature, and extreme weather conditions during the past century are unlikely to have been caused entirely by natural effects, and that changes in both average temperature and the geographic, seasonal, and vertical patterns of temperature indicate the influence of human actions on global climate.
Researches have warned that climate change will produce a sharp upswing followed by a deep plunge into an ecological crisis in the decades to come. The environmental, economic and political implications of global warming are profound. Climate change effects will impose significant additional stress on ecological and socio-economic systems. Besides, the ecological impacts, climate change will pose a major risk to human health and economic safety, especially among poorer communities with high population densities in areas like river basins and low-lying coastal plains, which are vulnerable to estimate related natural hazards such as storms, floods, and droughts. Ecosystems – from mountain to ocean, from the Poles to the tropics – are undergoing rapid change. Low-lying cities face inundation, Foreword fertile lands are turning to desert, and weather patterns are becoming ever more unpredictable. Worldwide climate variability will, thus,affect the nations’ social, economic, and political situations. According to a study,there will be at least 200 million climate refugees by 2050. Climate change’s impacts (and will) pose a major challenge to the economic and national security of every nation.
The cost of climate change will be borne by all. Technologically advanced countries are better prepared for responding to climate change, particularly by developing and establishing suitable policy, institutional and social capable for dealing with the consequences of climate change. However, even the richest nations face the prospect of economic recession, threats to economic and national security and a world in conflict over diminishing resources. Yet, it is the poor and developing countries that will be hardest hit by climate change related disasters, because they are economically and politically least developed and lack the sound technologies or scientific development to deal with the impacts of climate change. In developing countries like India, climate change is an additional burden because ecological and socioeconomic systems are already facing pressures from rapid population, industrialization and economic development. Developing countries, thus, are the most vulnerable to climate change impacts because they have fewer resources to adapt: politically, socially, technologically and financially. While our society is in the grip of a dangerous greenhouse gas habit, a concerted global action is needed to enable developing countries to adapt to the effects of climate change that are happening now and will worsen in the future.
OBJECTIVES
- To understand and ascertain the artificial/man-made dimensions of climate change.
- To foster the exchange of pedagogical information, ideas and experiences acquired in the execution of climate change adaptation projects, especially successful initiatives and good practiceon the key aspects of the theme.
- To study and examine the existing relation between contemporary economic development and Climate Change Variability.
- To examine the areas of vulnerabilities and the potential impacts of Climate change in developing countries.
- To discuss methodological approaches and experiences deriving from case studies and projects and explore the adaptation and response strategies to climate change which can be implemented in practice in the developing countries.
- To identify the key areas of tension and conflict in the realm of policy-makingand international collaboration in dealing with Global Climate Change.
The list of topics to serve as guidelines for papers and discussions includes the following:
- Global Environmental Change and the impact on the Ecology: Ocean currents and el Niño, Riverine and Mountain ecosystem impacts, Coastal and Marine ecosystem impacts, Forest and grassland ecosystem impacts, Impacts on specific biomes and biodiversity, potential extinctions, Hardiness zone migration, Regional variations: temperature and rainfall, etc.
- Anthropogenic factors in Climate Change: Determining the Relative Contribution of Natural and Human Causes.
- Ecological Engineering and Environmental Sustainability: Ecological Management and Restoration, Strategies for sustainability,Technologies of mitigation- carbon dioxide sequestration, solar shades and other processes.
- Economic Implications of Climate Change: Impact on agriculture, fish stocks, food security, health, etc.
- Climate forced migration.
- Political Dynamics of Climate Change and National Security.
- Contemporary Environmental crisis vis-à-vis Climate Change.
- The International Politics of Climate Change: Environmental policies in response to climate change, Climate ethics, The UNFCC and Global Environmental Governance, etc.
Important Dates:
Seminar: 15th-17th October 2015.
Abstract Submission: 30th June, 2015
Notification of acceptance: 10th July, 2015.
Last date of Submission of full paper: 30th September, 2015
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