“Global Warming and Climate Change: Contemporary and Future Challenges with Special Reference to Falling Water Table in Delhi/NCR and Future COVID-19 Like Pandemics.

Implementation of the past commitments and the “Polluter Pays” principle are the major issues deliberated at the recent UNFCCC-COP27 Summit at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. There is a prod on the countries and private sector to deliver on emission cuts, finance, crisis support, and Glasgow promises. India a responsible power also pitched in as she has in the past through her initiatives on SDG-12- on adopting and adapting sustainable practices as well as promoting a global movement for a climate-friendly lifestyle, pointing out the disproportionate use of the global carbon budget, need for global clean energy transition, seeking acknowledgment for all fossil fuels contributing to GHG emissions and equity principle through common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. These developments have prompted us to explore the multi-dimensional challenges of global warming and climate change, and the major domestic and international approaches to their management, with special emphasis on assessing the efforts for adaptation and mitigation of the human security threats arising from them in this chapter. The themes of global warming-climate change-water scarcity especially the rapidly falling groundwater level in the Delhi/NCR region are interrelated and disasters including their management especially with the help of remotely sensed data types, satellite image processing techniques, and applications for information extraction about natural disasters are a natural extension of the aforementioned themes. Herein the political and legal measures undertaken by India especially and the world at large are also of vital importance taking in lessons from the past while keeping an eye on future COVID-19-like pandemics which is of vital importance in the era of climate change because of the weight of these threats in the vulnerability, hazard and disaster matrix are getting increased and accentuated.