This report investigates the role of agriculture in addressing global challenges related to climate, water and food. Based on three international events over 2009: the World Water Forum, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the report identifies the interconnections between the three and the need to develop complementary policy options and action steps. The key findings of the report are:

Industrial development and climate change mitigation have historically been opposed to each other. This is reflected in the industrial and climate change policy frameworks in South Africa. As a result of these two opposing frameworks and the disruptive and complex nature of the necessary transition to a low-carbon economy, the emergence of a climate change regime is seen as a threat and a risk to industrial development. Without immediate and ambitious action, the dichotomy between industrial development and climate change mitigation is moreover due to amplify.

Enhancing a city’s resilience capacity is key for policymakers where there are plans to redevelop cities into ‘climate-smart’ cities. Researchers suggest that this needs a comprehensive city-wide loss and damage assessment for cities in India.

For empirical purposes, this study attempts a loss and damage assessment of Surat City in western India to floods. Surat is an industrial hub for both the textile and diamond industries.

India is the second most populous country in the world. Its population has increased by more than 181 million during the 2001-2011 decade. Correspondingly, the urban population has increased from 286.1 million in 2001 to 377.2 million in 2011 an is expected to rise to 534 million by 2026. This population increase has led to enormous pressure on urban infrastructure, hinders their ability to adapt to climate change and affects the cities’ resilience to climate change.

Climate change is one of the most dangerous threats ever faced by humankind. Fuelled by two powerful human-Induced forces that have been unleashed by development and manipulation of the environment in the industrial age, the effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in ways which threaten to have unprecedented negative impacts on urban quality of life, and economic and social stability. Alongside these threats, however, is an equally compelling set of opportunities.