Regional climate change impacts on wild animals' living territory in Central Europe

In this paper the projected future impact of climate change has been analyzed for the quality of living conditions of the European terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) in the Carpathian Basin. According to the climate scenarios, warmer and drier climatic conditions are likely to occur in the Carpathian Basin by end of this century. Simultaneous analysis of climate parameters, climate simulations and animal range datasets enables us to evaluate the vulnerability of different European species to regional warming and climate change. The spatial climate analogy technique is used to analyze the estimated rapid change of the wild animals’ habitats and their northward migration. For the reference climate data of Debrecen is considered, and three spatial analogue regions are compared. The results suggest that generally a significant decline in habitats is very likely for most of the analyzed animal groups by the end of the 21st century. The largest rate of decline is estimated for birds. However, living conditions for reptiles may improve in the future due to the warmer and drier climatic conditions, which are favourable for these species.

Price of unsustainability. Economic impacts of climate change

Global problems, rapid and massive regional changes in the 21st century call for genuine long-term, awareness, planning and well focused actions from both national governments and international organizations. This book wishes to contribute to building an innovative path of strategic views in handling the diverse challenges, and more emphatically, the economic impacts of climate change. Although the contributors of this volume represent several approaches, they all rely on some common grounds such as the costbenefit analysis of mitigation and adaptation, and on the need to present an in-depth theoretical and practical dimension. The research accounted for in this book tried to integrate and confront various types of economics approaches and methods, as well as knowledge from game theory to country surveys, from agricultural adaptation to weather bonds, from green tax to historical experience of human adaptation. The various themes and points of views do deserve the attention of the serious academic reader interested in the economics of climate change. We hope to enhance the spread of good solutions resulting from world wide disputes and tested strategic decisions. WAKE UP! It is not just the polar bears' habitat that is endangered, but the entire human form of life.

Climate change impacts on migration and labour market

Floods, droughts and monsoons have always disturbed human settlements, but there are more settlements now and more people in the world. Therefore, if a natural disaster happens, more will suffer than ever before. Moreover, climate in the past several decades has been greatly degraded by anthropogenic activity. In some cases, the chain of causality of human influence on the climate is direct and unambiguous (e.g. the effects of irrigation on local humidity), though there are instances where it is less clear. Presently, the scientific consensus (IPCC, 2007) on climate change is that human activity is very likely the cause for the rapid increase of global average temperatures, more generally known as global warming.