The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for assessing the science related to climate change. It provides policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of human-induced climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. This IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate is the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the observed and projected changes to the ocean and cryosphere and their associated impacts and risks, with a focus on resilience, risk management response options, and adaptation measures, considering both their potential and limitations. It brings together knowledge on physical and biogeochemical changes, the interplay with ecosystem changes, and the implications for human communities. It serves policymakers, decision makers, stakeholders, and all interested parties with unbiased, up-to-date, policy-relevant information. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This book explores how vulnerable and resilient communities from SIDS are affected by climate change; proposes and, where possible, evaluates adaptation activities; identifies factors capable of enhancing or inhibiting SIDS people’s long-term ability to deal with climate change; and critiques the discourses, vocabularies, and constructions around SIDS dealing with climate change. The contributions, written by well-established scholars, as well as emerging authors and practitioners, in the field, include conceptual papers, coherent methodological approaches, and case studies from the communities based in the Caribbean Sea and the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. In their introduction, the editors contextualise the book within the current literature. They emphasise the importance of stronger links between climate change science and policy in SIDS, both to increase effectiveness of policy and also boost scholarly enquiry in the context of whose communities are often excluded by mainstream research. This book is timely and appropriate, given the recent commission by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of a Special Report that aims at addressing vulnerabilities, “especially in islands and coastal areas, as well as the adaptation and policy development opportunities” following the Paris Agreement. Coupled with this, there is also the need to support the policy community with further scientific evidence on climate change–related issues in SIDS, accompanying the first years of implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.