Shifting Landscapes: Influence of Climate Change on India’s Rural Economies and Livelihoods

Abstract

This article is intended to analyse the effects of climate change on the rural economy. Climate  change and variability affect everyone and every part of the world. It is a serious threat to  individual livelihoods and ways of making a living. The study conducted a rapid literature  review to provide a timely synthesis of the existing evidence. Changes in climate conditions have significantly impacted ecosystem degradation in recent decades, with dire effects for the  rural population, which mostly depends on agriculture and fishing for a living. Undoubtedly, a  changing climate has a direct and indirect impact on the economy. Countries like India, whose  GDP largely depends on the rural economy, have faced enormous challenges in the last two  decades. Many researchers have tried to find the changes in the rural economy and its crisis  from an economic and political point of view, rather than Climate change and its impact, which  seems to be a simplistic view. However, this article attempts to critically examine the changing  rural economies in the context of climate change. This study offers a fresh perspective by  analysing rural economic crises through the lens of climate change rather than purely economic  or political factors, thereby revealing how environmental shifts fundamentally reshape  livelihoods in India.