Land is the integrating component of all
livelihoods depending on farm, forest, rangeland, or water
(rivers, lakes, coastal marine) habitats. Due to varying
political, social, and economic factors, the heavy use of
natural resources to supply a rapidly growing global
population and economy has resulted in the unintended
mismanagement and degradation of land and ecosystems. This
book provides strategic focus to the implementation of

The overarching theme of the book is
development in a land of contrasts. There have been large
economic, social, and political changes. The mass of society
is far more expressive and politically involved today. In
1945, the country had 7.4 million voters, about 11 percent
of the population. Today it has 120 million voters, or 67
percent of the population. The economy has been modernized,
the capitalist ethos spread across regions, mass

In Europe, it can be estimated that hydro-meteorological information and early warning systems save several hundreds of lives per year, avoid between 460 million and 2.7 billion Euros of disaster asset losses per year, and produce between 3.4 and 34 billion of additional benefits per year through the optimization of economic production in weather-sensitive sectors (agriculture, energy, etc.).

Greenhouse gas emissions are largely determined by how energy is created and used, and policies designed to encourage mitigation efforts reflect this reality. However, an unintended consequence of an energy-focused strategy is that the set of policy instruments needed to tap mitigation opportunities in agriculture is incomplete. In particular, market-linked incentives to achieve mitigation targets are disconnected from efforts to better manage carbon sequestered in agricultural land.

Clean, safe energy for rural areas is an
important component of green growth and sustainable
development. Biogas could be an important contributor, if
its record in reality lives up to its expected potential.
This paper provides a preliminary assessment of biogas use
by smallholder farmers in rural China, using data collected
from 2,700 households in five provinces. The authors find
that user satisfaction is high, and environmental and

The concept of "Green Growth" is a focus of much interest and considerable debate among decision makers concerned with enhancing both nearer-term economic progress and longer-term environmental sustainability. Proponents of Green Growth emphasize not only the need to protect various forms of natural capital to sustain improvements in material living standards and poverty reduction, but also the potential for strategically crafted environmental policies to achieve sustainability at low cost, perhaps even to help stimulate growth.

Sea level rise (SLR) due to climate
change is a serious global threat. The scientific evidence
is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas
emissions and associated global warming could well promote
SLR of 1m-3m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup
of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce
a 5m SLR. In this paper, the authors have assessed the
consequences of continued SLR for 84 developing countries.

Provides a brief assessment of how natural resource scarcity and global climate change may alter the risk of violent conflict in the future. Resource scarcity to meet basic needs such as food and land and water can be worsened by governmental ineffectiveness, and vulnerability of populations, ecosystems, economies, and institutions can outweigh the magnitude of climate or scarcity impacts themselves. Resource availability must be seen not as a stand-alone issue, but rather in the context of the overall political economy landscape.

This book grew out of the Global Issues
seminars and is itself a testament to that two-way dialogue:
the suggestion to compile the speakers' lecture notes
into a book came from the students themselves. Both the
seminars and this book reflect the Bank's conviction
that the seemingly intractable problems of our globalizing
world-from entrenched poverty, to climate change, to new
infectious diseases such as AIDS and avian flu-can be

The aim of this study is to assist the
government in this endeavor by focusing on selected
priorities. The overarching objective of this report is to
promote the mainstreaming and integration of climate related
risks in India's development policies and processes,
where this is appropriate. The objectives and scope of work
were developed in close consultation with the Ministry of
Environment and Forests as the primary counterpart, a

This paper analyzes the impact of large-scale expansion of biofuels on the global income distribution and poverty. A global computable general equilibrium model is used to simulate the effects of the expansion of biofuels on resource allocation, commodity prices, factor prices and household income. A second model based on world-wide household surveys uses these results to calculate the impacts on poverty and global income inequality. The study finds that the large-scale expansion of biofuels leads to an increase in production and prices of agricultural commodities.

Projections of future crop yields are highly uncertain. At global to regional scale, CO2 fertilization has the potential to generally increase crop yields on current crop land. However, it is highly unlikely that yield increases due to CO2 fertilization will be fully achieved in most regions, as long term positive effects are subject to scientific debate and increased yield levels require also adaptations in management.