Climate change and disasters: issues and measures for developing countries (a case of India)

Byline: Syeedun Nisa The ecosystem, all over the world, is under severe stress because of unprecedented population growth and increase in economic activity, which have pushed the world to limits that it could not handle. The cost of inaction, that is the business-as-usual path, could be huge and in fact, globally destabilising. The likely effect of inaction is global warming, which will affect food production, access to water, ecosystem functioning, extreme weather events like typhoons and hurricanes. Although modest in its ambition, the Kyoto Protocol was the first step towards mitigating global warming impacts. This paper aims at discussing climate change and its impact with focus on Kyoto Protocol. It also suggests a few points for post Kyoto Protocol agreement. The paper briefly outlines the Indian experience of disasters, discusses infrastructural, institutional and financial arrangements for disaster management, and proposes post disaster strategic measures in order to promise safer environment for the country.