Overview

"This book brings together diverse perspectives concerning uncertainty and climate change in India. Uncertainty is a key factor shaping climate and environmental policy at international, national and local levels. Climate change and events such as cyclones, floods, droughts and changing rainfall patterns create uncertainties that planners, resource managers and local populations are regularly confronted with. In this context, uncertainty has emerged as a ""wicked problem"" for scientists and policymakers, resulting in highly debated and disputed decision-making. The book focuses on India, one of the most climatically vulnerable countries in the world, where there are stark socio-economic inequalities in addition to diverse geographic and climatic settings. Based on empirical research, it covers case studies from coastal Mumbai to dryland Kutch and the Sundarbans delta in West Bengal. These localities offer ecological contrasts, rural–urban diversity, varied exposure to different climate events, and diverse state and official responses. The book unpacks the diverse discourses, practices and politics of uncertainty and demonstrates profound differences through which the ""above"", ""middle"" and ""below"" understand and experience climate change and uncertainty. It also makes a case for bringing together diverse knowledges and approaches to understand and embrace climate-related uncertainties in order to facilitate transformative change. Appealing to a broad professional and student audience, the book draws on wide-ranging theoretical and conceptual approaches from climate science, historical analysis, science, technology and society studies, development studies and environmental studies. By looking at the intersection between local and diverse understandings of climate change and uncertainty with politics, culture, history and ecology, the book argues for plural and socially just ways to tackle climate change in India and beyond. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003257585, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license."

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9781032190792

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Reviews

From climate change to Covid 19, we are living in a highly uncertain world - yet also one of intense politics of life, knowledge and policy around what uncertainty means and for whom. Unpacking these politics in relation to some of India's most dynamic yet vulnerable places, this volume combines sophisticated conceptual analysis with new empirical insights aimed at charting transformative future pathways. Compelling reading for scholars and practitioners alike. - Professor Melissa Leach, Director, Institute of Development Studies This volume deepens our understanding of the tremendous uncertainties that climate change is introducing in different ecologies in India. The authors also highlight how affected communities are dealing with the impacts of these uncertainties on their livelihoods. It is this micro-level perspective that gives the book its distinctive value. - Jairam Ramesh, MP and former Minister of Environment and Forests Addressing the existential challenge of climate change is compounded by the contested nature of knowledge on climate change impacts and solutions. By interrogating how experts, knowledge intermediaries and everyday people address uncertainties about climate change, this book provides a framework for how we know, and therefore, communicate, about climate change. Building on empirical cases from India, but with implications for wider geographies, the authors powerfully argue for appreciation of diverse ways of knowing and plural rather than unitary solutions, thereby contributing both to conceptual literature and climate practice. - Navroz K. Dubash, Professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

Author Information

Lyla Mehta is a Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, and a Visiting Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Hans Nicolai Adam is a Research Scientist at the Section for Water and Society at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) in Oslo, Norway. Shilpi Srivastava is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK.

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