The Right Climate To Take It On

Context: Climate change is the new reality, and India a has lot to do.

Climate change is the reality: According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th assessment report (AR6) - 

• Human influence on warming of atmosphere, ocean and land is ‘unequivocal’. 
• Rise in global surface temperature will continue at least until mid-century under all emission scenarios.

India’s climate and environmental vulnerabilities

• High burden of climate disaster vulnerabilities: 
  • 65% of India’s landscape is drought-prone, 12% is flood-prone, and 8% is vulnerable to cyclones. 
  • Instances of floods in India are the second highest globally, averaging at 17 flood events a year.
  • Cyclone Amphan affected about 13 million people and caused loss of property worth $13 billion. 
• Economic burden associated with climate change: Declining agricultural productivity, rising sea levels and negative health impacts are estimated to cost 3% of GDP for 1° C warming, but could go up to 10% of GDP for 3° C warming.
• Impact on agriculture sector: At risk will be the sustainability of current agricultural practices, livelihoods of the most vulnerable 120 million smallholder farmers and food security for the nation. 
  • 68% of the total net sown area in India is rain-fed. Variable precipitation will result in the water becoming scarcer in some regions and perilously abundant in others. 

Way forward

• A multipronged focus on building resilience and employing innovative approaches to agriculture: Pursue zone-appropriate crop selection, propagate efficient irrigation technologies, deepen financial inclusion and assured availability of reasonably priced farm credit.
• Building resilient infrastructure: This can be achieved through a 3% increase in infrastructure spending.
• Attention on resilient infrastructure for poor areas: As, globally, the bottom 20% of people lose only 11% of assets to disasters but suffer an alarming 47% well-being loss as a consequence.
• Deepen adaptation planning at subnational levels: State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCCs) shall be leveraged for building capacity of state-level stakeholders for integrating adaptation initiatives into existing programmes and projects.
• Address funding gap: Since its inception in 2015-16, the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC) has funded only 30 projects worth Rs 847 crore.
• If India is to meet its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for 2030, it will require an outlay of $2.5 trillion on climate adaptation and mitigation projects. (India’s GDP in 2020???? $3 trillion)
• Develop business cases to access relevant cheap and large volumes of capital for adaptation initiatives.