**1. Introduction**

A recent report indicates that national governments have until 2020 for the carbon emissions to peak in order to contain the global surface temperature below 2°C [1]. After staying flat for about three years, annual global carbon emissions have again begun to rise above 40 Gt and could rise further in the coming years due to the renewed economic growth across the globe. The present global pandemic has resulted in a small decline in global carbon emissions, however, with governments desperate to restore economic activities, this only appears temporary. The Paris Accord in 2017 was ratified and adopted with targets for countries to reduce emissions by 2030 to keep temperatures below 2°C and well below at 1.5° C by the end of the century. Annual carbon emissions will have to decline by greater than 50% compared to present levels by 2050 to keep the global surface temperatures below 2°C [2]. Already, global temperatures are above 1.1° C compared with preindustrial levels, and there is warming occurring at the rate of 0.2° C/decade [3].

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has increased substantially since preindustrial times and directly related to human population and economic growth. The concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions such as CO2 have increased almost 40% since pre-industrial times [4]. Annual CO2 emissions have increased from about 30 billion tons in 2000 to about 42 billion tons in 2016 [1]. However, in order to achieve the Paris Agreement, the remaining carbon budget, after accounting for past emissions, is in the range of 150 to 1050 gigatons CO2.

Major contributors to the increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere chiefly come from cement industries and thermal power plants through the burning of fossil fuels. Two main sinks for CO2 are the ocean and land sinks. Countries such as China and India are industrializing at a rapid pace, emissions are increasing in these two countries. However, CO2 emissions from India are much lower compared to China and the United States, CO2 emissions of India in 2015 were a quarter, and half, of the emissions from China and the United States respectively [5].

Recent reports from the IPCC, such as the *fifth assessment report* has provided unequivocal evidence of the impacts on various earth system processes due to anthropogenic caused warming [4]. There is now greater confidence and understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic caused climate change [4]. The globally averaged land and sea surface temperature shows an increase of about 0.8° C over the period 1880–2012 and an increase of about 1° C over pre-industrial temperatures [6]. There has been an increase in decadal annual global mean surface temperature at an average rate of 0.07° C per decade during the 1880s, increasing to 0.17° C per decade during the 1970s, increasing to 0.3° C per decade during the 2000s. There has been a decline in the extent of ice-sheets, loss of glacial mass, and also northern hemisphere spring snow cover in several regions across the world. Likewise, the mean sea level rise between 1901 and 2010 has risen by about 20 cm [4].

#### **1.1 Global impacts of extreme climatic events**

Other impacts of climate change are the occurrence of extreme climatic events, recent studies indicate that the magnitude, frequency, and intensity of hydrometeorological events such as heat waves, cyclones, droughts, wildfires, and floods are expected to increase several fold in the coming decades [7]. Globally, between 1980 and 2018, on average 400 disasters occurred annually, resulting in about 23000 fatalities, and leading to direct economic damage of about USD 100 billion each year [8]. Globally, the number of extreme events has increased from 200 during the 1980s to about 700 during 2016, therefore almost a three-fold increase in

#### *Adapting to Climatic Extremes through Climate Resilient Industrial Landscapes: Building… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98732*

the number of extreme events in a thirty-five year period [9]. Globally, the number of extreme hydrological, climatological, and meteorological events has doubled in a 30 year period [5]. Worldwide, about 100 million people were affected by disasters in 2015, with climate being a factor in 92% of the events [10], about one-fifth of those affected were from India.

Not only are extreme events becoming more frequent, they are also becoming costlier, for example, Hurricane Harvey is the costliest disaster to strike the United States, estimated cost of damages is about \$190 billion [11]. In 2016, insurance companies reported losses of about \$175 billion around the world, three-fourth of these losses were caused by meteorological, hydrological or climatological events [12]. During the year 2015, the total economic loss from disasters globally was about \$66.5 billion; the economic damage for India was about \$ 3.3 billion [9]. The economic loss from the Chennai floods has been estimated to be about \$ 0.3 billion of insured losses, and the total loss was about \$ 2 billion. Similarly, the floods of Mumbai in 2005 resulted in economic losses of \$1.7 billion. Likewise, the flooding in the southwestern state of Kerala in 2018 resulted in the death of 470 people.

The costs and risks of climate change are substantially high and all options to manage the impacts of climate change require urgent interventions. The *World Economic Forum Global Risks Perceptions Survey 2017–2018* [13] has ranked extreme events and natural disasters as top two risks in terms of likelihood. Similarly, extreme events, natural disasters, and failure on climate change mitigation and adaptation, are ranked second, third, and fourth in terms of impacts. These risks and impacts have been reported during successive years and there has been an increasing trend in environmental risks gaining prominence overtime over a tenyear horizon, commencing from 2008. Similarly, the recent, *Global Risks Perception Survey 2021* [14], indicates that extreme climate events are the most important risks to livelihoods. Infact, extreme climate events have emerged as the primary risk to humans since 2017.
