Coping with climate change in East Asia: Vulnerabilities and responsibilities

With its extremely large population and huge landmass, East Asia is among the world’s regions most vulnerable to – and increasingly responsible for – future climate change. This chapter briefly examines two issues that permeate debates about climate change policy and politics in the region: (1) the ecological and socio- economic impacts of climate change for the countries of East Asia, and (2) critical questions of international justice – what some prefer to call international equity or fairness – associated with climate change. Copyright © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.