Abstract

Climate change is the signature issue of our time, yet the topic remains one of great controversy politically (if not scientifically). Mostly as a result of this political controversy, the global community has made little real progress toward developing a collective effort to grapple with climate change. Underlying this lack of progress is the enormous diversity in viewpoints about climate impacts. Many in the Global North focus on the impacts of recurrent severe weather patterns and the economic impacts they generate; others focus on the effects of sea-level rise and storm-water management in areas of relative wealth. In the Global South, however, impacts are much more humanly acute, as they create economic havoc, migration flows and extreme loss of agricultural productivity. Focusing on this diversity of global perspectives, this webinar will examine the nexus between climate change and security as it divergently impacts people around the globe. In the latter portion of the talk we will focus on the Caribbean and examine data on the threats to a range of island states.