The Social Impacts of Climate Change in South Asia

Abstract

Climate change is undoubtedly the most serious environmental crisis Earth has ever witnessed. As the planet enters what many are terming the ‘Anthropocene ’ period in its geological history (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000) the impacts of climate change—along with the side-by-side destruction of ecosystems associated with the relentless industrialisation of the land and oceans—will transform forever its physical and biological properties. At smaller scales of time and space societies too are expected to undergo radical and irreversible changes. Indeed, in the context of South Asia, climate change is not only the biggest environmental threat faced by the region but also the likely cause of extraordinary social and economic problems in the course of this century. While it is virtually impossible to forecast the physical impacts of climate change with great accuracy at the regional scale, given vast uncertainties in input parameters as well as non-linearities in system dynamics, there are several added difficulties in predicting its social impacts. One has to do with ‘reflexivity ’ of human agency, i.e., the ability of people and societies to shift course based on their observation of how they are changing the world around them. Another, which counteracts the tendencies of the first, has to do with fundamental problems of collective action, i.e., the disconnect 1 Electronic copy available at