Foreword by R K Pachauri, Ph.D, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
India's and China's recent development progress, which saw over 250 million people's incomes rise above US$1 a day between 1990 and 2001, could be difficult to maintain under the stresses caused by global warming:
Increasingly intense rainfall, particularly during the summer monsoon, could increase the risk of flooding - a large number of floods have occurred in China in the last few years, mainly over the middle and lower basins of the Yangtze (Changjiang), Huaihe, and Haihe.
In arid regions of China, temperatures have risen since the 1970s, and will continue to rise; at the same time, already-low rainfall is expected to decline further.
Drought in north China has increased, resulting in severe agricultural losses. In addition, 82% of the glaciers in western China are retreating due to climate change.
India's climate is dominated by the southwest monsoon, which brings most of the region's rainfall. Heavier rainfall during the summer monsoon could increase flooding, but there is a worse prospect of the monsoon potentially failing due to the increasing frequency and intensity of the El Niño phenomenon.
With over 6,500 kilometres of low lying, densely populated land, millions of Indians are at significant risk from sea-level rise.
A study by the International Rice Research Institute showed that increases of 1°C at nighttime during the growing season - increases that are well within the predicted range of global warming - would reduce global rice yields by 10%. Another global study showed that the production of rice and wheat could fall by 8% and 32%, respectively, by the year 2050.
The latest climate National Assessment Report published by the Chinese Government estimates that, if no action is taken on climate change, the productivity of Chinese agriculture will fall by between 5% and 10%.
By the second half of this century, the production of 3 staple crops - wheat, rice, and corn - could fall by up to 37%.
In India, less water for rain- and meltwater-fed agriculture could cause a loss of up to 30% of India's agricultural production, including food grains.