Weathering the storm: India grapples with climate change

November 17 was no ordinary day. On this day, the Earth’s average surface temperature was two-degree Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average for the first time, providing more evidence of a fast build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Abdul Rehman Bhat, an apple grower in Kashmir’s Shopian district, was not aware of the significance of Nov 17. Neither was he particularly invested in the deliberations that would take place later at the UN Climate Summit (COP28) in Dubai

But, thanks to climate change, the last four ‘Chilla-i-Kalaan’ (apple harvesting seasons) have been nothing short of a nightmare for him. A sharp fluctuation in temperature across the valley resulted in unseasonal snowfall or early summers, leading to heavy damage to apple orchards.

“The apple crop has become vulnerable to diseases due to changing weather patterns,” he says. “There was a heat wave in February and March of 2023, causing the mustard to bloom at an unusual time. Then Kashmir was hit with excessive hail storms and erratic rain. Temperatures in May became chilly, unexpectedly, while February and March were warm.”

Market experts say there has been a 30 per cent decline in apple production, resulting in severe distress among the farming communities. Sajid Mir, another grower from north Kashmir’s Baramulla district says last year, his three acres of orchid produced 500 boxes of apples, but this year, he could harvest only 300 boxes.

Mir and Bhat were not alone in their plight when faced with a rapidly changing weather pattern. Last year, a single administrative block of Punjab lost over Rs 700 crore as two weather events struck the farmers within 60 days. The Khuian Sarwar block in Fazilka district in the state experienced a frost in January destroying 20% of the kinnow citrus crops.

The frost attack also shortened the harvesting season as the quality of remaining fruits deteriorated, reducing shelf-life to just a few days, and thereby restricting the market.

Just as the farmers were coping with the loss and hoping to make a recovery in the wheat crop, an unusually hot March put an end to such hopes. The wheat kernels did not ripen fully. The citrus flowers in the new batches of the perennial kinnow plants did not mature into fruits either.

The wheat yield plummeted by around 20 per cent and half of the citrus crop was lost. “Agriculturally the block is the least prone to risk. But with a slight temperature variation, it suffered a loss of about Rs 700 crore,” Ajay Vir Jakhar, chairman of the Bharat Krishak Samaj and a resident of the block, wrote in an article.

A shift in weather patterns is the most visible impact of climate change. Ever-expanding summers, shortening of winters, mosquitoes in December in Delhi, dengue outbreaks in Himachal Pradesh, floods in Rajasthan and short spells of high-intensity rains like the one that hit Chennai a few days ago – these are telltale signs of changing weather. However, even though the world recognises the vulnerability caused by changing climate, it has done precious little so far to reverse the trend.

The climate summit

One of the objectives of COP28 was to take stock of the actions that nations have undertaken since the Paris pact of 2015. “The stocktake recognises the science that indicates global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut 43% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, to limit global warming to 1.5°C. But it notes parties (nations) are off track when it comes to meeting their Paris Agreement goals,” the UNFCCC says, at the conclusion of COP28.

While a few announcements on financial commitments were made at the summit with much fanfare, the UNFCCC notes that such “financial pledges are far short of the trillions eventually needed to support developing countries with clean energy transitions, implementing their national climate plans and adaptation efforts.”

Scientists have projected that the guardrails of 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees Celsius will be breached in the foreseeable future if the world continues on the business-as-usual path without drastic cuts in carbon emission. February recorded the highest temperature in India in the past 120 years and according to the World Meteorological Organisation, 2023 is set to end as the warmest year ever recorded.

The impact of rising temperatures will be felt more by low and middle-income countries like India, which is the world’s seventh most climate-vulnerable nation. An analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water suggests that three out of four districts in India are extreme event hotspots, with 40% of the districts exhibiting a swapping trend that is, traditionally flood-prone areas are witnessing more frequent and intense droughts and vice-versa.

India’s average temperature has increased by around 0.7 degrees Celsius between 1901 and 2018. In a recent 30-year period (1986–2015), temperatures of the warmest day and the coldest night of the year have risen by about 0.63°C and 0.4°C, respectively.

The summer monsoon precipitation (June to September) has declined by 6% from 1951 to 2015, but there has been a recent shift toward more frequent dry spells (27% higher during 1981–2011 relative to 1951–1980) and more intense wet spells in these four months.

As a consequence, storms are becoming cyclones, droughts are affecting more than half of the country and catastrophic floods are striking some parts of the country almost every year.

India suffered an economic loss of $ 4.2 billion in 2022 due to extreme weather events and climatic disasters, most of which were caused by floods, as per the WMO. An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment shows that India has witnessed an extreme weather disaster almost every day of the first nine months of this year.

Vulnerable populations

While the poor and the marginalised are the hardest hit, women and children are even more vulnerable to climatic variations.

Kalaburagi-based economist Sangeetha Kattimani correlates climate changes to the economic development of north Karnataka, one of the state’s most backward regions. “Six of the eight Kalyana Karnataka districts have less than 1% of green cover and five of these districts are suffering from both floods and drought,” she says.

She points out that women are the worst affected as a majority are employed as farm labourers and any adverse impact on crops due to floods or drought results in loss of earnings.

The impacts on agriculture are visible in other states too.

Vishwanath K K, vice president of Karnataka Growers Federation, says the state has been witnessing the impact of changing weather patterns since 2016. The coffee-growing districts of Kodagu, Hassan and Chikkamagaluru witnessed two years of drought in 2016 and 2017, followed by three years of heavy rains.

“Rain is not new to us in Western Ghats. However, intense spells of rain in a short period of time, which is a recent phenomenon, is damaging our crops. The natural drains are not equipped to handle such heavy rain, resulting in flooding,” he says.

The monsoon showers that used to set in the first week of June are now setting in the last week of June or the first week of July. Monsoon is withdrawing a month late. There are intermittent rains till November or December resulting in a short winter season when flowers need to bloom. “The changing weather impacts the coffee cultivation in a big way,” Vishwanath says.

“Floods, cyclones, and heatwaves have intensified, affecting the food, water, and energy security, resulting in the loss of lives and livelihoods. Domestic migration is happening from agriculture-dominated areas of northern states that are facing rainfall deficits to the megacities like Mumbai that are facing increasing climate risks due to heavy rains, cyclones and a rising sea level,” says Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

Coping strategies

Farmers in Rajasthan have adopted innovative farming methods like “pitcher irrigation” to combat climate change in the dry lands. They also construct embankments, water harvesting structures to capture rainwater and prevent run-off and soil erosion, besides choosing crops like pearl millet that are more suited to the climate.

D Sivananda Pai, former director of the Institute for Climate Change Studies, Kottayam says the frequent rough weather alerts result in loss of human-days of work in the fisheries sector as well. The coastal community is suffering damage to properties including houses, fishing boats and equipment due to such weather.

Yet another warning came from Chennai just a few days ago. “Tropical Cyclone Michung caused devastating damages as Chennai received 500 mm of rain in just 36 hours. This is very much on the higher side. The IPCC models suggest rainfall associated with tropical cyclones landfall will increase manifold with global warming,” says M Rajeevan, former Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences.

All the impacts seen so far are in response to the one-degree Celsius rise in global warming. The current trajectory of carbon emissions points to a two degrees Celsius global warming by 2050. This means India will face extreme weather events that are more intense, frequent, and cover larger areas. Climate change has a huge impact on a population’s physical and mental health and health data is urgently required to build early warning systems into public health care.

“Climate models indicate that a changed monsoon pattern will be more common in the future, particularly the extreme rains that cause floods. The COP28 does not show a global political will to act on that. As a two degrees Celsius global change is closing in, India needs to urgently disaster-proof every village and city,” Koll notes.

(With inputs from Zulfikar Majid in Jammu and Kashmir, Rakhee Roytalukdar in Rajasthan, Arjun Raghunath in Kerala and Pavan Kumar H in Karnataka)