The mobilisation centred on the 2015 Paris Climate Conference
(COP 21) is an opportunity to highlight the vulnerability of environments
and populations in the South in the face of climate warming.
Some tropical regions are already suffering from its effects, with heat
waves in the Sahel, disturbances to monsoon systems, the melting of the Andean
glaciers, threats to biodiversity, a rise in sea level and other features.
Research conducted by IRD and its partners provides key knowledge for better
understanding of the complexity of these phenomena. This book is a synthesis in
three parts: observing and understanding climate change, analysing its main
impacts on environments and setting societies and national public policies at the
heart of the climate challenge.
Focused on the capacity for resilience of populations and ecosystems in the
face of trends in the climate, the book explores solutions that reconcile mitigation
and adaptation in response to climate change, conservation of the environment and
a reduction of inequalities. The work is both well documented and explanatory,
reviewing operations and the results of research that is firmly involved and
interdisciplinary, closely associating partners in the North and the South.