It is spring in Delhi — the three weeks spanning mid-February and early-March when all Delhi dwellers experience exhilarating optimism about their lives and their futures. The air is simply “moderate” to “poor” (and not “severe”), as per the various air quality index (AQI) applications on our phones. The Mughal gardens are in full bloom and thrown open to the public. Our public gardens are packed to the gills with picnickers amid the tombs, roses and preening peacocks.
Life is good. The Supreme Court is mostly functioning in physical mode, and the temperature is pleasant enough for us lawyers to stand around drinking tea while gossiping under the high domed ceilings and in the open-air corridors, wearing our multi-layered, mostly black advocate uniform, without sweat furiously dripping down our brows. It is amid this time of relative joy that I read parts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released on Monday. Perhaps, I shouldn’t have.
The IPCC, a body of almost 270 experts from 67 countries, brought together by the United Nations, gave a bleak assessment of the future of our planet and species. In its sixth assessment report, titled ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, the IPCC discusses the increasing extreme heat, rising oceans, melting glaciers, falling agricultural productivity, resultant food shortages and increase in diseases like dengue and zika. Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, quoted in The New York Times, describes the IPCC report as being “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” He added, “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people, and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change”.
Now those of us who live in India don’t need the UN Secretary General to tell us that climate change is clobbering us. We are living in the future that the IPCC predicts. Our cities are experiencing more frequent extreme heat waves. In Delhi, the AQI for winter months averages between 300-500, akin to smoking one to two packs of cigarettes every day. Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are in the list of the top 15 most polluted cities of the world, as per the Switzerland-based climate change group IQ Air.
The IPCC warns that should our planet get warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times (we are at 1.1 degrees at present), then there will be irreversible impact on “ecosystems with low resilience” such as polar, mountain and coastal ecosystems “impacted by glacier melt, and higher sea level rise”. This will cause devastation to “infrastructure in low-lying coastal settlements, associated livelihoods and even erosion of cultural and spiritual values.” The increased heat will lead to an increase in diseases like diabetes, circulatory and respiratory conditions, as well as mental health challenges. Clearly, adverse climate change is an all-encompassing condition damaging our minds, our lungs and our livelihoods.
The IPCC also highlights that climate “maladaptation” will especially affect “marginalised and vulnerable groups adversely, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, low-income households and informal settlements” and those in rural areas. Therefore, India, with a majority of its people falling in these categories, will be especially devastated.
Esha Roy and Amitabh Sinha in their reports in The Indian Express note that the IPCC highlights India as a vulnerable hotspot, with several regions and cities facing climate change phenomena like flooding, sea-level rise and heatwaves. For instance, Mumbai is at high risk of sea-level rise and flooding, and Ahmedabad faces the danger of heat waves — these phenomena are already underway in both cities. Vector-borne and water-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue will be on the rise in sub-tropical regions, like parts of Punjab, Assam and Rajasthan.
When the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the grains we consume, including wheat and rice, will have diminished nutritional quality. But this presumes we will not face a crisis in food. Tucked away in annexure I of the IPCC report, I found a chilling factoid — that over the past 30 years, major crop yields have decreased by 4-10 per cent globally due to climate change. Consequently, India, which continues to be predominantly agrarian, is likely to be especially hurt.
Yet, it is not just our agrarian segments that will be impacted. Anjal Prakash, one of the lead authors of the chapter on cities and settlements, wrote that “urban India is at greater risk than other areas with a projected population of 877 million by 2050 nearly double of 480 million in 2020. The concentration of population in these cities will make them extremely vulnerable to climate change.”
We Indians know that we are experiencing the adverse consequences of the impacts of climate daily — the extreme heat, dirty air, poor quality of food grains. Our elders are mostly diabetic, and our streets are clogged with gas-guzzling vehicles. Yet, our political class has no cohesive and urgent policy roadmap to combat rising emissions and our diminishing life spans.
The problem is that fighting climate change requires fiscal expenditure and policy changes fuelled by political will, which will reap results in a decade or so. That is two election cycles too many for our politicians. Therefore, the primary electoral issues will continue to revolve around temples and mosques, dress codes and prohibited foods. Issues that presume we will continue to live as we do, ignoring the obvious question: Will we survive?
This column first appeared in the print edition on March 5, 2022 under the title ‘Climate of denial’. The writer is a senior advocate at the Supreme Court.
