South Asia faces significant challenges as the most climate-vulnerable region among emerging markets and developing economies. With limited fiscal capacity, governments in the region are unable to fully address these issues, leaving households and firms to bear the brunt of climate adaptation efforts. A new book explores how these entities are coping with climate risks, what actions they are taking, and the obstacles they face.
The book offers policy recommendations that fiscally constrained governments can implement to help their citizens and businesses build resilience against climate change. It draws from global experiences to provide detailed strategies for vulnerable sectors and groups.
Shanta Devarajan, a professor at Georgetown University, praised the book for its comprehensive approach: “By providing an analytically rigorous, evidence-based and comprehensive treatment of climate adaptation in South Asia, this book is a model for how to use economics to help poor people. It will definitely feature in my syllabus, as well as many others.”
Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak from Yale University highlighted the importance of recent empirical research: "This is a timely report for at least two reasons. First, recent disaster events and longer-run environmental changes across South Asia...imply the climate crisis is already affecting millions of lives. It has become urgent to give private and public sector decision-makers in the region some ideas for policy tools to deal with these crises."
Mobarak also emphasized that current studies based on real observations offer more reliable insights than past predictive models: "Social science research is on much more solid footing when we analyze observations of actual changes than on predictions of future changes."
For further information or media inquiries, contact Mehreen Sheikh at msheikh1@worldbankgroup.org.