Climate change and disaster response

The risks arising from climate change are many, such as unforeseen and extreme weather events like heat waves, typhoons and cyclones, coastal and river flooding, and prolonged droughts. These can have adverse economic, social and environmental consequences and affect human well-being and the overall quality of life.The rising demand for food due to rising population and incomes coupled with declining production of staples such as wheat, rice and maize due to the adverse effects of climate change will undermine food security and affect the poor and vulnerable people. Building resilience to address these climate risks poses a challenge to governments, societies and entities. Mainstreaming ‘resilience’ into development plans is therefore critical to tackling poverty, inequality, ill health and poor sanitation, as well as realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), since poor and marginalized people and poor countries that have low adaptive capacity are most vulnerable to the adverse consequences of climate change. Improving climate and disaster risk management can also lead to larger gains in development and poverty reduction.Building resilience will also be helpful in coping with uncertainties arising from the complex and dynamic interactions between climate change and other parameters such as health. What are the likely impacts of climate change on human and natural ecosystems? How will it affect different sectors and sections of the society? What are the alternatives and policy options to address the risks posed by climate change and extreme weather events?