Meltdown in South Asia

The second report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released on April 6, delivers the dire warning that much of Southern Asia is in danger of a vast socioeconomic downturn for 250 million people if global warming persists at its current rate, says C Uday Bhaskar

The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in Brussels on April 6, makes for a very grim forecast and has serious implications for the security of most parts of the developing world— and for Southern Asia, including China, in particular. Global climate change is a complex subject with a multitude of cause-and-effect strands embedded in it, and the IPCC study, which is cautious in the main, has pooled the expertise of hundreds of internationally renowned experts who have worked for almost three years to finalise the current report.

Headed by India’s leading environmental and energy expert, Dr R K Pachauri, the current report is the second of four such studies. The summary of the main findings arrived at to date make the following broad conclusions. The first report asserted that it was 90 per cent probable that the global warming monitored since 1950 has been caused by human activities; the current report confirms that greenhouse gases related to rapid industrialisation and the use of hydrocarbons for energy production are the major source for such warming—although there will be more about this in the third report, to be issued in May. (The final report will be released in November and will harmonise all the earlier inputs so that necessary policy recommendations can then be made.)

But even at this stage, what the April report has to present is cause for deep concern and must remain on the priority list for the state and the more discerning cross-sections of civil society. The major findings of the IPCC report are inter alia: 75-250 million people across Africa could face water shortages by 2020; crop yields could increase by 20 per cent in East and Southeast Asia, but decrease by up to 30 per cent in Central and South Asia; agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50 per cent in some African countries by 2020; about 20-30 per cent of all plant and animal species are at increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise between 1.5-2.5 C; and glaciers and snow cover are expected to decline, reducing water availability in countries supplied by snowmelt.

Note the stark references to South Asia—both explicit and by allusion. Crop yields could drop by up to 30 per cent in this part of the world and, more alarmingly, with glaciers and snow cover expected to melt (read the Himalayas), the macro water availability will reduce in large tracts of South Asia, with disastrous socioeconomic consequences. Both droughts and floods are endemic to this region; when assessed holistically, the IPCC report draws attention to some very real exigencies that will affect Southern Asia in a very direct and intense manner.

The degree to which these little noticed but very alarming realities that the IPCC has highlighted, and the manner in which seemingly nebulous issues like global warming will impact this region, are better understood when we also note the findings ofanother report also released in mid-April. Sea Level Rise (SLR) is a direct outcome of global warming, and this eventuality is the focus of a study jointly undertaken by representatives of the UK-based International Institute for Development and Environment, the US’ City University of New York, and Columbia University. This study, slated for publication in the journal Environment and Urbanization, identifies low-elevation coastal zones (LECZs), land areas contiguous to the coast which are less than 10 metres above sea level.

What the current studies unambiguously reveal is that the global average of SLR over the past four decades (1961-2003) has gone up very sharply. Whereas the SLR rate was 1.8 millimetres per year in this 42-year period, when disaggregated for the previous decade (1993-2003), it was a high 3.1 mm/per year. The LECZ distribution with demographic densities factored in indicate that China, India and Bangladesh will be the most affected by SLR, with the number of people vulnerable being 143 million, 63 million and 62 million respectively. Further exploration of these findings point to the high urban ratio in the danger zones—warning signs that cannot be ignored. The security and politico-strategic implications of about 250 million human lives being endangered needs little reiteration.

But more than the detail, what merits realpolitik attention are the proactive measures that must be embarked upon. To suggest that governments must obtain and study these and other reports for their veracity is a case of stating the obvious. More than the state, civil society across the world, and Southern Asia, in particular, needs to become far more aware of the linkages between environmental issues and human security, and nudge their governments to take pre-emptive measures. While cutting greenhouse gas emission is a major global issue—for instance, the much-stalled Kyoto Protocol—making local assessments about the environmental linkages and the timelines involved is critical.

Southern Asia’s annual, albeit tragic, tryst with death and devastation every monsoon is a shame—but it repeats itself with regularity. When a Mumbai comes to a complete halt, as it did last year, it makes the news—but briefly. The national capital, New Delhi, goes through its choked drains fiasco every monsoon. In the interim, urban growth remains unplanned, and market forces coupled with speculative greed have turned major South Asian cities into urban ghettos where dire necessity and admirable stoicism force the less privileged into the squalor of slums and shantytowns.

Indian civil society must exude greater awareness and activism about environment-development-human security linkages. Academia, the corporate sector, non-governmental organisations and public bodies, wherever they exist, have a very important role to play. The IPCC report tells us that global warming and its potentially catastrophic consequences are no longer just academic debates. Our collective time to respond starts now.