area for sociological research is to map the demographic impact of global climate change on different populations,
especially differences in race, class, gender, age, health status, region, and nation. Sociologically-based research
findings can inform human development scenarios for population sectors that are particularly vulnerable to
climate change impacts. Sociological research should pursue the IPCC’s human dimensions of climate change
research agenda which calls for studies of the demographic aspects of poverty, unequal access to resources, food
insecurity, conflict, and incidence of diseases. Demographic research on the impact of climate change could
examine the causes, features, and consequences of global urbanization as well as the impacts of growing slums
and urban megalopoli for greenhouse gas emissions, food production and consumption, water access and use,
health outcomes, political participation, and a wide variety of other social, economic, and political variables.^27(^27) See Canan, Entwisle, Fischer-Kowalski, Harlan, Maldonado, McCormick, and Nagel papers in Appendix 3.
Part II: Sociological Perspectives of the Impacts
of Global Climate Change