International Conference on Climate Change and Environment

Climate change is already underway. It holds the potential to cause significant changes in physical and biological systems in all the continentsCand oceans. It also threatens to destabilize natural phenomena on a regional aswell as global scale; some warning signs are already visible. Unprecedentedoccurrence of severe droughts, heat waves, storms, heavy precipitation, floods, cyclones, shifts in climate zones and seasonality, and increase in sea level andtemperature have been reported from various regions of the globe. As these illeffects intensify, they will increasingly cause stress to our ecosystems andtribulations to the livelihood and resources of islands, beaches and coasts.

Climate change will exert unprecedented stress on the coastal and marineenvironment too. It will increase the ocean temperature, cause sea level rise,and will have impact on ocean circulation patterns, ice cover, fresh water run-off,salinity, oxygen levels and water acidity. Corals in tropical regions and in shallowwater regions, especially that build reefs, will be subjected to bleaching due torising of ocean temperature and acidity. Corals will die if the stress persists forlonger duration. Fresh water resources of small islands will be vulnerable to anyscenario of sea level rise. The limited resources and infrastructure facilities thatislands, especially small islands, possess are under the greatest threat.