Socio-economic and climate conditions are highly interdependent and interrelated; the two together determine the vulnerability of a society to climate change. Climate-related stresses include loss and salinization of agricultural land due to change in sea level, the likely changes in intensity of tropical cyclones and possibility of reduced productivity in coastal and oceanic fisheries in India. The impacts could be exacerbated by continued population growth in low-lying agricultural and urban areas. Appropriate adaptation strategies will alter the nature of the risk and will change the socially differentiated nature of vulnerability of the populations living in the hazardous regions. This article explores how human security approach to climate change can be considered a people oriented approach that emphasizes both equity issues and the growing connectivities among people and places. It focuses on the management of threats to the environmental, social and human rights of individuals and communities, while at the same time enhancing the capacity to respond to both change and uncertainty.
Climate change, vulnerability, human security approach
