ABSTRACT
South Asia, the habitat of one-fourth of the world’s population, is experiencing huge economic, social, and environmental damages since the recent past. This amounts to compromising the growth potential and poverty reduction efforts and consequent difficulties in attaining other Millennium Development Goals in an era of accentuated risks posed by global climate change. Being situated in the broad range of extremes, topography wise, the countries of South Asia are facing increased frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events, resulting in precipitation anomalies, flooding, landslides, and saltwater intrusion that eventually creates crop failure, damage to property, and displacement of human settlement alongside relentless political conflicts in the region. In the backdrop of severe climatic projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the near future and the prevalence of a stern North-South divide in climate change research which applies climatic policies in favour of richer countries, this chapter summarises the economic, geographical, and political vulnerabilities gripping South Asian countries and their responses to combat the destitution. This chapter synthesises the diverse issues discussed in different chapters of this volume, which are imperative to analyse the conundrum emerging from and concerning climate change facets in South Asia.
