Introduction

Abstract

China and India, the “civilization twins” of the Himalayan sphere, are seeking continuous and extremely high rates of economic growth. For these two countries, and also for their neighboring countries, seeking multiscalar innovative responses to threats emanating from increasing environmental unsustainability is a matter of necessity and not choice. The critical challenge facing the two large countries is whether nearly three billion people inhabiting diverse sociocultural, economic, and ecological spaces, spanning from the Himalayas to the Oceans, could achieve the consumption patterns and economic standards of the Global North? The concepts of space, scale, and power-central to any formulation of environmental sustainability-have to be addressed and problematized. The contributions to this volume underline that China and India-as civilizations, polities, institutions, societies, and economies-will have to think and act differently at this critical juncture of their journeys.