Much food for thought ahead of COP26

New Delhi, Oct 29 : Climate change isn't just transforming our physical environment, it's permanently shifting the landscape of energy, farming, technology and business.

It's eroding ancient ways of life, shaking up global finance and driving a historic new wave of mass migration.

In "Race For Tomorrow - Survival, Innovation and Profit on the Front Lines of the Climate Crisis" (HarperCollins), an extraordinary journey across 26 countries, Simon Mundy meets the people embroiled in a race that is already reshaping the modern world.

For instance:

* Why is a maverick scientist building a home for engineered mammoths in northeast Siberia?

* How is China's green energy push driving a hazardous mining rush in Congo?

* Could an Israeli fake meat startup make a fortune while helping to save Amazon?

* How is Greenland's melting sea ice putting its people at the centre of a global power struggle?

* Who are the entrepreneurs chasing breakthroughs in fusion power, electric cars, and technology to suck carbon from the atmosphere?

As the impact of climate change cascades through the planet and the global economy, who is battling to survive the worst impacts -- and who is chasing the most lucrative rewards?

With intimate insights into the people living in the most severe throes of climate change, the book is filled with richly reported human stories from every inhabited continent -- an account of disaster, of promise, of frantic adaptation and relentless innovation, of hope, of survival, and of the forces that will define our future.

Mundy spent weeks in each location while researching the book, from sleeping on the floor of herders' huts in Mongolia and travelling with members of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau tribe in the Amazon, to talking to top level CEOs, national leaders and innovators about the decisions they are facing.

These are closely told and compelling human stories on a global scale, with chapters covering Siberia, Greenland, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Maldives, Solomon Islands, Italy, Germany, Cayman Islands, Philippines, India, Ethiopia, Chile, Mongolia, Brazil, the US, Israel, Australia, Saudi Arabia, China and Congo and provide much food for thought ahead of COP26 -- the UN Climate Change Conference beginning in Glasgow on Sunday.

Simon Mundy began his reporting career in Johannesburg, where he covered Southern Africa for the Financial Times.

After a stint writing in the London financial sector he spent seven years in Asia, as FT bureau head in Seoul and then Mumbai.

He was born in the UK.

--IANS

vm/dpb.

Source: IANS