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| India Warming |
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| Laveesh Bhandari | |||
| Monday, 25 August 2008 05:30 | |||
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There will be no doomsday, when the environment will get out of control, and humanity will be forced to live in subterranean earth, or migrate to the moon. Leave that to science fiction Among the many challenges facing India there is one that has had little policy related discussion. This is the impact of global warming. Some facts. Global warming is here, and there is a very high likelihood that this warming is due to human efforts at improving their economic well-being. As per the IPCC there is a 90 percent likelihood that the recent rise in global temperatures is due to the greenhouse effect brought about due to a rise in ‘greenhouse gases’ that include carbon dio-oxide, carbon monoxide, methane as well as many others including increased particulate matter. Our environment is heating up, sea levels are rising, glaciers are reducing in length and depth, extreme weather patterns’ frequency is increasing, and Indian policymakers and intelligentsia are more concerned about how they can come up with better bargaining solutions in international negotiations. While there may be great benefits to that strategy, the fact remains, global warming is upon us. And we need to figure out what all we can and should be doing unilaterally. All indications are that even if there was no increase in further greenhouse emissions, India will be a much warmer country. The full impact of past emissions will play out in the next few years. Himalayan glaciers would be much smaller and some will disappear, river water levels would show larger variations, floods and droughts will both be more frequent, low lying land will disappear within the sea, and many other effects will be upon us. This is not a doomsday opinion piece. We need to recognize that this is going to happen. And we need to figure out how to deal with it. Of course, if increases in greenhouse emissions continue at the current rate, these impacts will be much higher in scope and severity. As India and China continue on their high growth path, and as this growth spreads, the greenhouse gas emissions will accelerate. Already research suggests that carbon di-oxide emissions have risen faster in the last decade than the decade before that. That is not surprising. Rapidly expanding economies will impact the environment rapidly. And this impact will not be positive. There are three aspects to environment policy. The first is how to deal with the new and warmer environment. The second how to reduce potential environment damage. And the third, the need for unilateral action. The environment is too important an issue to be left to the mercy of either the hard-nosed ‘growth above all’ or the softheaded ‘doomsday’ types. There are solutions that are available, and there will be yet more solutions that will become available. Many of these solutions will not require an economic growth – environment stability trade-off, but some may. All solutions will be technological, but they will need to be backed by appropriate economic policy. Given that a large part of the economic policies are under state governments’ powers, we need not necessarily look for a consensus on specific measures, but merely a consensus on appropriate direction that India should take on such issues. If policy reform of the past is any indication, it takes about a decade for a national consensus to emerge and translated into specific policy measures. Implementation could eventually take another few years. The earlier we start with this process, the lower the costs that would need to be borne. And it is quite apparent that the changing environment will affect the underprivileged the most adversely. The monetary and effort costs will be lower the earlier we start. So what do we need to do? And that is the strange part – we have little clue! Perhaps reducing glacier size requires us to store water in the upper part of the Himalayas. Perhaps changing weather patterns requires a hardier set of hybrid seeds. Or perhaps we need a different approach to agriculture altogether. One that is less dependent upon energy intensive inputs such as fertilizers. Perhaps rising sea levels will require us to build Holland type dykes and dams that will allow farmers to farm on land lower than sea level. Or perhaps we will just need to ensure that farmers in delta systems are re-settled. In that case we should know that we will not be able to get them agriculture land so they will need to shift occupations, perhaps we could start with their children now. Infrastructure and agriculture sectors will be the most sensitive to changed climatic patterns. Temperatures a few degrees higher or rains that shift by a couple of weeks, could change the optimal crop to grow or seed to use. It could change the timing of various steps in the crop production process. Not merely farmers. It could change animal husbandry practices. And it could require changes in fishing practices as well. The point is that for the time being there will be no doomsday, fishing or farming or animal husbandry will not stop, they will just need to be different. Infrastructure is another important sector. Perhaps, roads in some parts will need to be made more robust to high precipitation, perhaps And here the farmer with small pice of land will find it most difficult to shift. It does not But first, ….. There will be no doomsday, when the environment will get out of control, and humanity will be forced to live in subterranean earth, or migrate to the moon. Leave that to science fiction. The earth has been much warmer in the past, its atmosphere has withstood the impact of large asteroid hits, simultaneous volcanic eruptions, huge temperature dips and rises, etc. In other words, we have an atmospheric system that has the internal capacity to regain its equilibrium. The problem is, it could take a few centuries before that happens.
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