On Tuesday, a World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) report occupied centre stage at the UN Security Council’s first-ever debate on the impact of sea-level rise on global peace. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cited the document to warn of “a mass exodus of population on a biblical scale”. The report — whose release coincided with the landmark UNSC session — adds to the growing corpus of studies that underline the climate vulnerabilities of people living in low-lying areas. But it projects a crisis that’s frightful, even by the dire standards of climate reports. More than one in 10 people in the world, including those in megacities like Mumbai, New York, London, Dhaka, Shanghai and Buenos Aires, could face severe turmoil even if global warming is miraculously limited to 1.5 degrees — the Paris climate pact’s goal.
The task for policymakers then is to prepare for massive social and economic dislocation. This will require building resilience at several levels. For instance, investing in R&D, infrastructure and warning systems to mitigate the loss of lives and property. Protecting coasts could require engineering, technological and ecological interventions — creating physical barriers, permeable pavements, sopping waters or reviving mangroves. The jury is out on several innovations. Engineering solutions are often criticised because even the most robust protective structures deflect the energy of the waves to other areas. Armoured shorelines can also upset the delicate ecological balance of coastal habitats. In recent times, innovations to overcome such deficiencies by combining engineering and ecological approaches have been tried. But a lot of the state-of-the-art green know-how remains out of reach for a majority of the worst affected countries. Technology and fund transfer commitments at UN summits have rarely been in proportion to the gravity of the challenge at hand — in any case, follow-up on even the most sincere commitment has been far from being adequate.
As the WMO has warned, the rising seas are a “threat-multiplier”. The rushing salty waters can aggravate disparities by playing havoc with agrarian systems and ruining the livelihoods of fishing communities. International law may well have to engage with the requirements of people dislocated by the sea, many of them rendered stateless. At the same time, dealing with emergencies, mitigating hardship and preparing people to deal with the vagaries of climate will require political will and action at the level of local governments. In India, this could test the resolve of urban municipalities and civic bodies that have struggled to do justice to their mandate, even in normal times.
