Climate Change and Paris Agreement : Challenges After US Withdrawal

Climate change, caused by the building up of green house gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere, is a serious global environmental concern. Climate change occupies a high priority on the environmental agenda of international community. Vulnerabilities of India to climate change -- in particular impacts on water resources, forests, coastal areas, agriculture, and health -- need to be identified and appropriate remedial measures taken. The Paris Agreement, 2015, marks the latest step in the evolution of the UN climate change regime. Since global warming is caused by total accumulation of GHGs and each countrys emissions add to the stock, the cost of each countrys emissions is borne by the entire global community. Similarly, the benefits of reduction in emission by any one country accrue not to the country itself but to the entire global community. This is classically a situation characterised by externalities in which individual countries will not have a sufficient incentive to undertake mitigation unless all countries co-operate with an equitable distribution of the burden of reducing emissions. This book provides an exhaustive account of environmental problems and the attending consequences. More importantly, it attempts to summarise the developments leading to the adoption of the historic Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015. It provides an overview of the contents of Paris Agreement, its implementation process and the roles of the main parties and other stakeholders. Challenges after the US withdrawal from the Climate Change Agreement are also briefly discussed.