Climate Change is an alarming concern

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Climate change stands as one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. With its wide-ranging impact on environment, economies, and societies, the urgency to address this challenge has never been more pressing.

The evidence of climate change is overwhelming, and its consequences are increasingly severe,  making it an alarming concern that demands immediate and sustained action. It is important to examine how climate change affects the country’s health. India’s inadequate health systems make our population particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate risks on health.

Climate change affects health directly, causing more sickness and death. In more indirect ways, it affects nutrition, reduces working hours, and increases climate-induced stress. One estimate suggests that if the global temperature were to rise by 2°C, many parts of India would become uninhabitable.

All nations during the Paris Agreement agreed to cap the rise in temperature at 1.5°C. Clearly, we have failed. The double burden of morbidity that India faces from communicable and non-communicable diseases will be worsened by climate change. It could facilitate the growth of vectors such as mosquitoes, sandflies, ticks, and as yet unknown ones, and change the seasonality of infection through changes in their life cycle. Heat, physical exertion, and dehydration, a constant state for labourers, could lead to kidney injuries, which are rising in India due to uncontrolled diabetes.

Depression, aggravated by stress generated by the change in weather conditions, and post-traumatic stress disorder invariably accompany a climate emergency. These are rarely recognised in India, much less addressed. India is urbanising at a rapid pace, in an unplanned manner. Urban areas, not tempered by urban greenery and open spaces and filled with asphalt roads and heat-retaining buildings that physically block air circulation, bear the worst ill effects of climate change due to the urban heat island effect.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, unless greenhouse gas emissions fall dramatically, warming could pass 2.9°C this century, which would have catastrophic consequences for life on this planet. According to the report, India ranked 7th in this year's Climate Change Performance Index. The year 2023 saw the highest temperatures and heat waves in recorded history.

According to a report by the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, weather-related disasters triggered over half a million (above five lakh) internal displacements in India in 2023 and around 2.5 million (25 lakh) in 2022. Severe heat waves have impacted a large number of people in parts of India for three years in a row, affecting health, water availability, agriculture, power generation, and other sectors of the economy. The heat has also made forests drier, fueling the extreme wildfires that have swept across large swathes of the world in recent years.

According to a survey, 85% of people surveyed in India say they are already experiencing the effects of climate change, and more than a third of them have either already moved or considered moving because of extreme weather events such as severe heat, droughts, and floods. The number of 2,178 adults surveyed between September 5 and November 1 last year by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication and CVoter expressed their concern about global warming.

While 86% of the respondents favour India's commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, 78% say the government should be doing more to address global warming. It is projected that 148.3 million (14.83 crore) people in India will be living in severe climate hotspots by 2050. In the United States, wildfire air pollution now kills somewhere between 4,000 and 28,000 people annually, according to the American Thoracic Society. Recently, in a judgement by the Supreme Court of India on Great Indian Bustard species, it was reiterated that the right to a healthy environment, safe from the ill-effects of climate change, was a “fundamental human right."

India urgently needs to shift to solar power due to three issues: one, the country is likely to account for 25% of global energy demand growth over the next two decades; two, rampant air pollution emphasises the need for cleaner energy sources; and three, declining groundwater levels and decreasing annual rainfall.

India’s goal to achieve 500 GW of non-fossil-based electricity generation capacity by 2030 aligns with its efforts to be net zero by 2070. In 2023–24, out of the total generation capacity of 9,943 MW added, 8,269 are from non-fossil fuel sources. According to the Renewable Energy Statistics 2023 released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), India has the 4th largest installed capacity of renewable energy.

A report from the Lancet medical journal found that last year, with the world already about 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than the average preindustrial temperature, people in 2022 experienced about 86 days on average of dangerously high temperatures. The deadly floods left a trail of destruction in the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand last year. A glacial lake outburst flood in Sikkim in October led to the collapse of a hydroelectric dam, killed more than 100 people, and affected more than 88,000 people.

A study in the journal Nature Medicine estimated that some 61,000 people died during European heatwaves in the summer of 2022. Action to control climate change needs to happen at global, regional, and local levels. The pathways of climate change and their impact will determine the appropriate area of intervention. To achieve this, India has to recognise climate change and its impact on health as a problem that can, and needs to be addressed. Researchers who work in this area need to come up with policy options for action. National, state, and local governments have to decide whether to act on the policy options that have been generated by research.

Only when the three streams of problematization, policy options, and political decision-making come together a meaningful change is likely to happen. It will be worthwhile to examine if these necessary conditions have been satisfied before expecting a change in the status quo on climate change and its impact on health.

By: Shahruk Ahmed Mazumdar is based in Assam, India.