Adapting to climate change is not a new phenomenon for the Arab world. For thousands of years, the people in Arab countries have coped with the challenges of climate variability by adapting their ...survival strategies to changes in rainfall and temperature. Their experience has contributed significantly to the global knowledge on climate change and adaptation. But over the next century global climatic variability is predicted to increase, and Arab countries may well experience unprecedented extremes in climate. Temperatures may reach new highs, and in most places there may be a risk of less rainfall. Under these circumstances, Arab countries and their citizens will once again need to draw on their long experience of adapting to the environment to address the new challenges posed by climate change. This report prepared through a consultative process with Government and other stakeholders in the Arab world assesses the potential effects of climate change on the Arab region and outlines possible approaches and measures to prepare for its consequences. It offers ideas and suggestions for Arab policy makers as to what mitigating actions may be needed in rural and urban settings to safeguard key areas such as health, water, agriculture, and tourism. The report also analyzes the differing impacts of climate change, with special attention paid to gender, as a means of tailoring strategies to address specific vulnerabilities. The socioeconomic impact of climate change will likely vary from country to country, reflecting a country's coping capacity and its level of development. Countries that are wealthier and more economically diverse are generally expected to be more resilient. The report suggests that countries and households will need to diversify their production and income generation, integrate adaptation into all policy making and activities, and ensure a sustained national commitment to address the social, economic, and environmental consequences of climate variability. With these coordinated efforts, the Arab world can, as it has for centuries, successfully adapt and adjust to the challenges of a changing climate.
Climate change is profoundly altering our world in ways that pose major risks to human societies and natural systems. We have entered the Climate Casino and are rolling the global-warming dice, warns ...economist William Nordhaus. But there is still time to turn around and walk back out of the casino, and in this essential book the author explains how.
Bringing together all the important issues surrounding the climate debate, Nordhaus describes the science, economics, and politics involved-and the steps necessary to reduce the perils of global warming. Using language accessible to any concerned citizen and taking care to present different points of view fairly, he discusses the problem from start to finish: from the beginning, where warming originates in our personal energy use, to the end, where societies employ regulations or taxes or subsidies to slow the emissions of gases responsible for climate change.
Nordhaus offers a new analysis of why earlier policies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, failed to slow carbon dioxide emissions, how new approaches can succeed, and which policy tools will most effectively reduce emissions. In short, he clarifies a defining problem of our times and lays out the next critical steps for slowing the trajectory of global warming.
Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses-the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and extent. The effects of what ...historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan, from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa. The Americas, too, did not escape the turbulence of the time.
In this meticulously researched volume, master historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who saw and suffered from the sequence of political, economic, and social crises between 1618 to the late 1680s. Parker also deploys the scientific evidence of climate change during this period. His discoveries revise entirely our understanding of the General Crisis: changes in prevailing weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.
Parker's demonstration of the link between climate change, war, and catastrophe 350 years ago stands as an extraordinary historical achievement. And the implications of his study are equally important: are we adequately prepared-or even preparing-for the catastrophes that climate change brings?
The climate is changing, and the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region is vulnerable to the consequences. Many of the region's countries are facing warmer temperatures, a changing hydrology, ...and more extremes, droughts, floods, heat waves, windstorms, and forest fires. This book presents an overview of what adaptation to climate change might mean for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It starts with a discussion of emerging best-practice adaptation planning around the world and a review of the latest climate projections. It then discusses possible actions to improve resilience organized around impacts on health, natural resources (water, biodiversity, and the coastal environment), the 'unbuilt' environment (agriculture and forestry), and the built environment (infrastructure and housing). The last chapter concludes with a discussion of two areas in great need of strengthening given the changing climate: disaster preparedness and hydro- meteorological services. This book has four key messages: a) contrary to popular perception, Eastern Europe and Central Asia face significant threats from climate change, with a number of the most serious risks already in evidence; b) vulnerability over the next 10 to 20 years is likely to be dominated by socioeconomic factors and legacy issues; c) even countries and sectors that stand to benefit from climate change are poorly positioned to do so; and d) the next decade offers a window of opportunity for ECA countries to make their development more resilient to climate change while reaping numerous co-benefits.
The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire explores the serious and far-reaching impacts of Little Ice Age climate fluctuations in Ottoman lands. This study demonstrates how imperial ...systems of provisioning and settlement that defined Ottoman power in the 1500s came unraveled in the face of ecological pressures and extreme cold and drought, leading to the outbreak of the destructive Celali Rebellion (1595–1610). This rebellion marked a turning point in Ottoman fortunes, as a combination of ongoing Little Ice Age climate events, nomad incursions and rural disorder postponed Ottoman recovery over the following century, with enduring impacts on the region's population, land use and economy.
As a 'Medieval Warm Period' prevailed in Western Europe during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the eastern Mediterranean region, from the Nile to the Oxus, was suffering from a series of climatic ...disasters which led to the decline of some of the most important civilizations and cultural centres of the time. This provocative study argues that many well-documented but apparently disparate events - such as recurrent drought and famine in Egypt, mass migrations in the steppes of central Asia, and the decline in population in urban centres such as Baghdad and Constantinople - are connected and should be understood within the broad context of climate change. Drawing on a wealth of textual and archaeological evidence, Ronnie Ellenblum explores the impact of climatic and ecological change across the eastern Mediterranean in this period, to offer a new perspective on why this was a turning point in the history of the Islamic world.
Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 ...billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.Meckling explains how a transnational coalition of firms and a few market-oriented environmental groups actively promoted international emissions trading as a compromise policy solution in a situation of political stalemate. The coalition sidelined not only environmental groups that favored taxation and command-and-control regulation but also business interests that rejected any emissions controls. Considering the sources of business influence, Meckling emphasizes the importance of political opportunities (policy crises and norms), coalition resources (funding and legitimacy,) and political strategy (mobilizing state allies and multilevel advocacy).Meckling presents three case studies that represent milestones in the rise of carbon trading: the internationalization of emissions trading in the Kyoto Protocol (1989--2000); the creation of the EU Emissions Trading System (1998--2008); and the reemergence of emissions trading on the U.S. policy agenda (2001--2009). These cases and the theoretical framework that Meckling develops for understanding the influence of transnational business coalitions offer critical insights into the role of business in the emergence of market-based global environmental governance.
Climate change governance is in a state of enormous flux. New and more dynamic forms of governing are appearing around the international climate regime centred on the United Nations Framework ...Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They appear to be emerging spontaneously from the bottom up, producing a more dispersed pattern of governing, which Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom famously described as 'polycentric'. This book brings together contributions from some of the world's foremost experts to provide the first systematic test of the ability of polycentric thinking to explain and enhance societal attempts to govern climate change. It is ideal for researchers in public policy, international relations, environmental science, environmental management, politics, law and public administration. It will also be useful on advanced courses in climate policy and governance, and for practitioners seeking incisive summaries of developments in particular sub-areas and sectors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Earth's climate is always changing. As the debate over the Earth's climate has grown, the term "climate change" has come to refer primarily to changes we've seen over recent years and those that are ...predicted to be coming, mainly as a result of human behavior. Climate Change: Observed Impacts on Planet Earth, Second Edition, serves as a broad, accessible guide to the science behind this often political and heated debate by providing scientific detail and evidence in language that is clear to both the climatologist and the non-specialist. The book contains 35 chapters on all scientific aspects of climate change, written by the world's authority of each particular subject. It collects the latest information on all of these topics in one volume. In this way, readers can make connections between the various topics covered in the book, leading to new ways of solving problems and looking at related issues. The book also contains major references and details for further research and understanding on all issues related to climate change, giving a clear indication of a looming crisis in global warming and climate change. * Provides an up-to-date account of the current understanding of climate change and global warming * Includes 23 updated chapters and 12 new chapters * Includes coverage on modeling climate change, geological history of climate change, and on engineering aspects of climate change * Written by the world's leading experts on the issues related to climate change
