From the introduction:

The present paper overviews the indices that have been proposed in recent years to measure different aspects of climate change and the degree of vulnerability within the framework of human development. It thus addresses the critical issues pertaining to the assessment of the impact of climate linked factors on socio-spatial development and vice versa. The exercise is helpful also in evolving a methodology for environmental accounting and computation of green income, often used as the basis for restructuring growth strategies in mitigating depletion of non-renewable resources and ensuring their use without compromising sustainability of development. The focus here is on conceptual issues underlying the tools of measurement, examination of their implications for the empirical realities of the region and proposing modifications for better capturing the ground situation. In the second section an attempt is made to understand the nature and problems of climate change and the major initiatives to operationalise a global framework for monitoring and guiding development process across the countries in the world. The next section traces the changing perspectives on measurement of vulnerability based on a review of major international declarations, agreements, policy documents and research studies with the goal of developing vulnerability indicators. It critically reviews the methodological approaches, classifying the studies based on the differences in their framework and areas of concern. The problems of the developing countries in the context of impact of climate change and adopting the recommendations of the international organizations have been reviewed in the fourth section. Suitability or otherwise of the commonly used indicators for these countries, whose capability to adapt is low, because of their geographical specificities and socio-economic characteristics, is also discussed in the section. A methodological framework has been proposed in the final section along with a perspective for selection of indicators in the context of developing countries within the human development framework. A few modifications or realignments have been proposed in the indices to focus on geographically isolated countries, vulnerable people, occupational categories, socio-religious groups etc., taking the data availability and their reliability into consideration. An attempt is also made here to ensure that the new measures are not totally unconnected with those employed in the global comparisons today.