Impact of Climate Crisis on Development Studies
Global warming emerged as the product of human-kind causes many problems for humanity and all entire living beings of the world whether intelligent or not. The increased severity of the situation opens the world to further vulnerabilities. The natural disasters that get triggered and get escalated into bigger problems cause irreparable consequences that humankind is trying to prevent or at least develop strategies and policies to repair to the best degree afterward. This is where the development studies come into the picture. It is known that development studies mainly focus on increasing welfare both economically and socially but finding a link between the development studies can quite be difficult to understand.
The process of development comes with a heavy burden. Each country, leader, or public has to make sure that the basis that the entire process gets built is strong and sustainable so that problems won't cause irreparable damage or at least can be patched quite easily. This infrastructure development, which has to be done before the actual process of development starts, is the key to understanding the link between the climate crisis and development studies. For example, a country that is prone to having months of drought per year has to be prepared to survive or come up with alternatives so that the accustomed problems do not open them to further damages that can be caused by the drought. If they do not, the entire livelihood of the public can be endangered since the water that is needed to survive, and provide nutrition for the agricultural well-being will not be there to utilize. Development studies would pave the path to come up with alternative methods of acquiring said needed resources. Nowadays the most known speculation for the future of the earth consists of what is widely known as the possible water war that might occur in the near future. This potential war would cause the drainage of every resource available to humankind including but not limited to healthcare and one’s life.
As we go through the years we have consumed most of what was available to us from the beginning such as the fuels that we utilize and then discard or the ecological environment that surrounds us. Sustainability has become an important argument and makes itself more important with each passing day. We are aware that the resources that are left will not be able to support us in the long run so the development studies are looking for other opportunities where we can still be able to sustain ourselves without further damaging what we already have caused harm. Some perspectives of the development studies believe that a country can be categorized as a developed country based on merely how much larger its economy grows per year (GPD/GNP increase per year) and disregard the possible downsides since development focuses on what is beneficial. The sustainable development perspective on the other hand acknowledges the problems that are caused by the development process as a whole and notes down the downsides such as destroying the habitat, flora, and fauna just so that the industry can increase their outputs. By addressing these negatives the possible solutions get debated and the most probable initiative takes action.
The destruction of the resources available to us is just one of the many aspects where development studies show their face when the matter comes to the climate crisis. Climate crisis is not simply just a problem that either decreases the resources or the output but it is also a problem for the social sphere. When we examine Venice, Italy we may see a beautiful city with water canals going through it offering even prettier scenery we can not ignore the probability of a catastrophic event where the entire city can be submerged under the water because of the increase of the sea level. This raises an important point. In the scenario where the city gets overrun by the water that surrounds it people living there will not be able to survive much longer than mere days. So a huge wave of migration can be expected that is aimed toward other countries that will not be affected by the catastrophic event. This wave of migration will cause a change of balance wherever the people from Venice end up settling since the infrastructure that was built in the new environment was calculated to suit the needs of a specific number of people. The economy would not be able to align itself to the new situation and can fail while the social environment in the immigrated country can be turned upside down since the problem was not anticipated.
When these problems are getting acknowledged by many actors of the world they decide that a collective initiative can prevent, solve, or at least provide the grounds for the re-establishment of the harmed systems. One example that can be given to this is the United Nations IRENA committee. IRENA stands for International Renewable Energy Agency which focuses on coming up with ways to deal with the problem of energy and how new renewable energy policies can prevent further problems while also solving the existing problems. This international organization consists of many countries, the majority of which consists of developed countries, showing that no matter who you are and where are you from, the modern problems can still be solved to some capacity if certain cooperation and initiatives are taken seriously. Another example that can be given is the private sector coming up with goals for a more sustainable future. Such as Samsung trying to solve many problems and changing the world until 2030.
The question of whether can climate crisis be prevented or at least survived can't be answered without diving into speculations, but the best possible path for today is to realize the importance of what we have and act together to keep it safe whether through transition or self-preservation.
In conclusion, climate crises have wide-ranging implications for development across various sectors. However, by incorporating the possible problems of the future into the development planning process, and promoting sustainability in every area it is possible to navigate a pathway towards sustainable development that mitigates global warming and ensures the well-being and survival of current and future generations.