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Climate change is the defining development challenge of our time. More than a global environmental issue, climate change and variability threaten to reverse recent progress in poverty reduction and economic growth. Both now and over the long run, climate change and variability threatens human and social development by restricting the fulfillment of human potential and by disempowering people and communities in reducing their livelihoods options. Communities across Latin America and the Caribbean are already experiencing adverse consequences from climate change and variability. Precipitation has increased in the southeastern part of South America, and now often comes in the form of sudden deluges, leading to flooding and soil erosion that endanger people's lives and livelihoods. Southwestern parts of South America and western Central America are seeing a decrease in precipitation and an increase in droughts. Increasing heat and drought in Northeast Brazil threaten the livelihoods of already-marginal smallholders, and may turn parts of the eastern Amazon rainforest into savannah. The Andean inter-tropical glaciers are shrinking and expected to disappear altogether within the next 20-40 years, with significant consequences for water availability. These environmental changes will impact local livelihoods in unprecedented ways. Poverty, inequality, water access, health, and migration are and will be measurably affected by climate change. Using an innovative research methodology, this study finds quantitative evidence of large variations in impacts across regions. Many already poor regions are becoming poorer; traditional livelihoods are being challenged in unprecedented ways; water scarcity is increasing, particularly in poor arid areas; human health is deteriorating; and climate-induced migration is already taking place and may increase. Successfully reducing social vulnerability to climate change and variability requires action and commitment at multiple levels. This volume offers key operational recommendations at the government, community, and household levels with particular emphasis placed on enhancing good governance and technical capacity in the public sector, building social capital in local communities, and protecting the asset base of poor households.

Indigenous peoples across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) already perceive and experience negative effects of climate change and variability. Although the overall economic impact of climate change on gross domestic product (GDP) is significant, what is particularly problematic is that it falls disproportionately on the poor including indigenous peoples, who constitute about 6.5 percent of the population in the region and are among its poorest and most vulnerable (Hall and Patrinos 2006). This book examines the social implications of climate change and climatic variability for indigenous communities in LAC and the options for improving their resilience and adaptability to these phenomena. By social implications, the authors mean direct and indirect effects in the broad sense of the word social, including factors contributing to human well-being, health, livelihoods, human agency, social organization, and social justice. This book, much of which relies on new empirical research, addresses specifically the situation of indigenous communities because our research showed them to be among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A companion book (Verner 2010) provides information on the broader social dimensions of climate change in LAC and on policy options for addressing them. This book will help to place these impacts higher on the climate-change agenda and guide efforts to enhance indigenous peoples' rights and opportunities, whether by governments, indigenous peoples' organizations and their leaders, or non-state representatives.

Based on analysis of recent data on the evolution of global temperatures, snow and ice covers, and sea level rise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently declared that \"warming of the climate system is unequivocal.\" Global surface temperatures, in particular, have increased during the past 50 years at twice the speed observed during the first half of the 20th century. The IPCC has also concluded that with 95 percent certainty the main drivers of the observed changes in the global climate have been anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases (GHG). While the greenhouse effect is a natural process without which the planet would probably be too cold to support life, most of the increase in the overall concentration of GHGs observed since the industrial revolution has been the result of human activities, namely the burning of fossil fuels, changes in land use (conversion of forests into agricultural land), and agriculture (the use of nitrogen fertilizers and live stock related methane emissions).

\"This book addresses the implications of climate change on indigenous peoples and communities living in the highlands, lowlands, and coastal areas of Latin America and the Caribbean. Across the region, indigenous people already experience the negative effects of climate change and variability. Their livelihoods are threatened by insecure food supplies and poor health. In addition, their cultural integrity is challenged: Indigenous peoples often blame themselves for the changes they observe in nature, despite their limited emission of greenhouse gases. This book shows the complexity of how indigenous communities are affected by climate change, explores options for improving resilience, and provides guidance in the design of effective and sustainable adaptations.\" \"Based on original fieldwork and supported by a host of data, this pioneering and much-needed study comes at a critical time, when policy makers and planners urgently need accurate information and operational guidance to design and implement interventions, such as REDD, to help protect the environment, along with the livelihoods of its custodians.--Anthony Hall, Professor, London School of Economics\" \"Indigenous peoples throughout the world are likely to suffer the worst impacts of climate change. This book uses the latest available knowledge to show how indigenous people themselves, governments, and international agencies can act now to increase the resilience of social and ecological systems on which indigenous peoples depend for their livelihoods. It will be of great value to analysts, decision makers, and scholars alike.--Arun Agrawal, Professor and Associate Dean, University of Michigan.\" \"It is an important book that should be read by everyone that has a role in policies of adaptation and sustainable development in the region. Kronik and Verner have done a remarkable job and produced a useful and timely contribution for policy makers.--Antonio Magalhaes, Former Secretary of Planning, Brazil, and Director, ICID 2010\" \"This book integrates livelihood and sustainable development issues with social and cultural issues. It will be of value not only to researchers and policy specialists in these areas, but far more broadly, to all who work on sustainable development and environmental justice.--Benjamin Orlove, Professor, Columbia University\" \"This book explains the complex ways indigenous peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean are affected by climate change and how they are trying to adapt and increase their resilience. This book is highly recommended not only to policy makers but also those seriously seeking climate change solutions.--Vicky Taull-Corpuz, Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education, Philippines\"--Jacket.

Based on analysis of recent data on the evolution of global temperatures, snow and ice covers, and sea level rise, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently declared that \"warming of the climate system is unequivocal.\" Global surface temperatures, in particular, have increased during the past 50 years at twice the speed observed during the first half of the 20th century. The IPCC has also concluded that with 95 percent certainty the main drivers of the observed changes in the global climate have been anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases (GHG). While the greenhouse effect is a natural process without which the planet would probably be too cold to support life, most of the increase in the overall concentration of GHGs observed since the industrial revolution has been the result of human activities, namely the burning of fossil fuels, changes in land use (conversion of forests into agricultural land), and agriculture (the use of nitrogen fertilizers and live stock related methane emissions).

There is an increasing consensus in the scientific community that climate change is a real and present threat. Despite the large uncertainty on the timing, magnitude and even the direction of some of the physical and economic effects of this phenomenon, it is widely accepted that the differences are regional and that developing countries as well as lower income populations tend to suffer the most. In this context, it is critical for Latin American countries to develop strategies for adapting to the various impacts of climate change, and for contributing to global efforts aimed at mitigation.Climate Change in Latin America contributes to these efforts by addressing a number of questions related to the causes and consequences of climate change in the case of Latin America. What are the likely impacts of climate change in the region? Which countries and regions will be most affected? What can governments do to tackle the challenges associated with adapting to climate change? What role can Latin America play in the area of climate change mitigation? While the book does not attempt to provide definitive answers to these questions, it contributs new information and analysis that could help to inform the public policy debate on this important issue.

\"There is an increasing consensus in the scientific community that climate change is a real and present threat. Despite the large uncertainty on the timing, magnitude and even the direction of some of the physical and economic effects of this phenomenon, it is widely accepted that these effects will be regionally differentiated and that developing countries and lower income populations will tend to suffer the most. In this context, it is critical that Latin American and Caribbean countries develop their own strategies for adapting to the various impacts of climate change and for contributing to global efforts aimed at mitigation. Low Carbon, High Growth contributes to these efforts by addressing a number of questions related to the causes and consequences of climate change in Latin America. What are the likely impacts of climate change in the region? Which countries and regions will be most affected? What can governments do to tackle the challenges associated with adapting to climate change? What role can Latin America and the Caribbean play in the area of climate change mitigation? How can the international community best help the region respond? While the study does not attempt to provide definitive answers to these questions, its goal is to contribute new information and analysis to help inform the public policy debate on this important issue.\"--Book cover.

From 1750 to 1800, a critical period that saw the American Revolution, French Revolution, and Haitian Revolution, the Atlantic world experienced a series of environmental crises, including more frequent and severe hurricanes and extended drought. Drawing on historical climatology, environmental history, and Cuban and American colonial history, Sherry Johnson innovatively integrates the region's experience with extreme weather events and patterns into the history of the Spanish Caribbean and the Atlantic world.By superimposing this history of natural disasters over the conventional timeline of sociopolitical and economic events in Caribbean colonial history, Johnson presents an alternative analysis in which some of the signal events of the Age of Revolution are seen as consequences of ecological crisis and of the resulting measures for disaster relief. For example, Johnson finds that the general adoption in 1778 of free trade in the Americas was catalyzed by recognition of the harsh realities of food scarcity and the needs of local colonists reeling from a series of natural disasters. Weather-induced environmental crises and slow responses from imperial authorities, Johnson argues, played an inextricable and, until now, largely unacknowledged role in the rise of revolutionary sentiments in the eighteenth-century Caribbean.

This contribution presents an assessment of the potential vulnerabilities to climate variability and change (CV & C) of the critical transportation infrastructure of Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It focuses on potential operational disruptions and coastal inundation forced by CV & C on four coastal international airports and four seaports in Jamaica and Saint Lucia which are critical facilitators of international connectivity and socioeconomic development. Impact assessments have been carried out under climatic conditions forced by a 1.5 °C specific warming level (SWL) above pre-industrial levels, as well as for different emission scenarios and time periods in the twenty-first century. Disruptions and increasing costs due to, e.g., more frequent exceedance of high temperature thresholds that could impede transport operations are predicted, even under the 1.5 °C SWL, advocated by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and reflected as an aspirational goal in the Paris Climate Agreement. Dynamic modeling of the coastal inundation under different return periods of projected extreme sea levels (ESLs) indicates that the examined airports and seaports will face increasing coastal inundation during the century. Inundation is projected for the airport runways of some of the examined international airports and most of the seaports, even from the 100-year extreme sea level under 1.5 °C SWL. In the absence of effective technical adaptation measures, both operational disruptions and coastal inundation are projected to increasingly affect all examined assets over the course of the century.