Impacts of Climate Change on Human Development

Scientific research throughout the past decades has demonstrated how climatic changes have important impacts on the livelihoods of people around the world. For most of developing countries their level of structural and social vulnerability, are a dangerous combination and a formula for impacts of higher magnitude. Therefore, climatic phenomenon such as tropical storms, floods and droughts, more often become tragedies in these countries. This paper analyzes the impacts of such phenomenon in the human development of people across the world. Some of the climate change related issues analyzed in this paper are: droughts and water security, tropical cyclones and storms, rising tides, warming seas, coral bleaching, fish stocks, melting glaciers, heat waves and cold spells and the impact on human health. These shocks are discussed in this paper along with the differentiated impact on countries in various levels of human development.