Opinion 2024 was the hottest year — 2025 could be hotter

The jury is still out on whether climate change has reached a point of no return. But the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) announcement that in 2024, the world’s most populous country experienced its hottest year since 1901 should be sobering for policymakers across the world. Globally, too, there is enough evidence that the year gone by was the hottest on record — though the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has not yet issued an official declaration. The IMD and WMO have warned that 2025 could be another hot year. By all accounts, India is on track to meet its global climate goals. That, however, isn’t the case for most countries, especially those in the West. Indian policymakers must, therefore, build several guardrails — frame heat action plans, build sea walls, improve disaster-management systems, spruce up weather-alert mechanisms, overhaul drainage systems, install irrigation systems to combat water scarcity and climate-proof agriculture.

As the planet gets hotter, the challenge will be to address people’s vulnerabilities without compromising on their developmental needs. More than 30 per cent of the country’s GDP is generated in sectors that are highly nature-dependent — agriculture, forestry, water and power utilities, and construction. A World Economic Forum study estimates that agriculture output is estimated to drop by 16 per cent in the next five years, shaving off more than 2.5 per cent of the GDP. Another report, last year, by the global construction consultancy CBRE, estimates that nearly 50 per cent of the country’s infrastructure is at risk due to extreme weather events. The Reserve Bank of India has also recognised that global warming can upset financial stability and growth. Quantification of climate risks in the country has, however, been patchy, largely because of the fragmented nature of information and widespread variations in data collection metrics. In this context, the RBI’s move, last year, to set up a repository, the Climate Risk Information System, is a timely step. The system’s focus on local-level scenarios is particularly salient given that climate vulnerabilities vary every few kilometres in the country.

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The political class has, however, rarely taken cues from the country’s central bank, Met body, academia and civil society institutions. The toll taken by floods, landslides, sea-level rise, poor air and the loss of green lungs has rarely been at the centre of political conversation, even during the general election last year. That’s why longstanding vulnerabilities of people to extreme rainfall, heat and cold have remained unaddressed. Every year, floods in rural and urban India expose a similar set of abdications: Outdated drainage systems that cannot take the stress of more than normal rainfall, planning that does not account for local hydrology and civic agencies whose role seems limited to organising relief and rescue. It’s increasingly becoming clear that floods, droughts, cyclones and heatwaves cannot be dealt with on a short-term basis, or only to tide over emergencies.