The India Climate Observatory

Commentary, action and research on climate and development in India

At last a climate change ministry

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The Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge), Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge) and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Prakash Javadekar presenting a sapling to the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on June 05, 2014. Image: PIB

The Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge), Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge) and Parliamentary Affairs, Shri Prakash Javadekar presenting a sapling to the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on June 05, 2014. Image: PIB

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests is now the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Minister of State Prakash Javadekar has taken charge of the ministry and pushed through the change.

As reported by CMS ENVIS Centre on Media & Environment, Javadekar’s past association with GLOBE India (Global Legislators’ Organisation for Balanced Environment) is likely to be handy for him while dealing with the issue of climate change in the ministry. GLOBE India – the country chapter of GLOBE International – is a cross-party group of legislators working to play critical role in guiding public policy on environment and develop laws on climate change.

Javadekar’s task is a difficult one that requires consistent public participation, for the NDA government is expected to bring in policies to protect environment without compromising on economic development and the rights of local communities. The ministry will also have to immediately come out with an institutional set-up – national environment regulator – to streamline regulatory procedures as desired by the Supreme Court.

At present, environmental, natural resources and climate change matters are being handled by a number of authorities at the Centre and state levels which are separately responsible for various types assessments and clearances: environmental, forest, wildlife, coastal and air\water pollution.

About the India Climate Portal

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The India Climate Portal promotes critical thinking about and fresh analysis of climate change and its impacts on India and the South Asian region. This approach has come about through grassroots work, civic dialogue and engagements with society, by the project supporters. The objective is to draft a strong domestic agenda that will realistically determine the risks of a changing climate while identifying opportunities for equitable transformations that enable us to live sustainably with the impacts.

In the pages of the India Climate Portal you will find a number of resources including publications such as the monthly India Climate Watch bulletin, the annual Who’s Who in Climate Change in India, the Discussion Paper series; and films such as In Good Company – profiling corporate leadership on climate change in India, and City Dialogues.

This project is an effort to spread awareness and promote action on climate change in India, to help build a new cooperation and sensibility on climate change. To partner with the India Climate Portal, to share your initiatives and reports, to collaborate on programmes and cooperate on studies and events, please write to Viva Kermani [ vivakermani at gmail dot com ].

Weather shock in Kashmir

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The Valley of Kashmir, satellite image from National Remote Sensing Centre/Bhuvan

The Valley of Kashmir, satellite image from National Remote Sensing Centre/Bhuvan

Snow up to several feet deep descended on most of the valley of Kashmir in the first two weeks of March, whipping up blizzards and triggering avalanches on the steeper mountain slopes. With at least 17 deaths reported, around 2,000 homes damaged, roads blocked and electricity disrupted in many parts of the state, authorities struggled to rescue people in snowbound areas and restore essential services, as reported by The Third Pole.

The damage to agricultural and horticultural property has yet to be reckoned, said officials, and could run into tens of crores of rupees. The airport in the Jammu and Kashmir summer capital Srinagar had to be closed and highways were blocked. The Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir receives 30% of its annual rainfall in the winter. The average rainfall, calculated over the winters of 1951 to 2000, is 183 millimetres (mm). This year, the Indian Meteorological Department forecast that Jammu and Kashmir would see below average rainfall for the months of January through March. And then, between March 1-12, the state received 122 mm of rain, far higher than the normal 56 mm.

Several studies indicate that most parts of the Himalayas are getting warmer at a rate faster than the average warming of the earth. Patterns of rain and snow vary throughout the mountains as weather is controlled by dramatic changes in topography and the presence of distinct microclimates in many parts.

A meteorological department official in Srinagar added that the pattern of rainfall and snowfall was erratic while insufficient precipitation also leaves farmers and others worried. Farmers from southern parts of Kashmir reported that more than 80% of almond crop this year had suffered heavy losses due to the damage caused to almond blossoms. Apple growers in the apple rich belts of Shopian and Sopore said that thousands of apple trees had crumbled under the heavy snow, thus ending any hopes of a good crop. “Around 15% of the apple trees have suffered damage due to the heavy snowfall,” Amin Mir, president of the Kashmir Fruit Growers’ Association, told thethirdpole.net.

IPCC to world: stop and shrink, or perish

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“There is increasing recognition of the value of social, institutional, and ecosystem-based measures and of the extent of constraints to adaptation”: IPCC

“There is increasing recognition of the value of social, institutional, and ecosystem-based measures and of the extent of constraints to adaptation”: IPCC

The language is clear and blunt. The message continues to be, as it was in 2013 September, that our societies must change urgently and dramatically. The evidence marshalled is, when compared with the last assessment report of 2007, mountainous and all of it points directly at the continuing neglect of our societies to use less and use wisely.

This Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) comes seven years after the last. It has said that observed impacts of climate change have already affected agriculture, human health, ecosystems on land and in the oceans, water supplies, and livelihoods. These impacts are occurring from the tropics to the poles, from small islands to large continents, and from the wealthiest countries to the poorest.

“Climate change has negatively affected wheat and maize yields for many regions and in the global aggregate. Effects on rice and soybean yield have been smaller in major production regions and globally, with a median change of zero across all available data, which are fewer for soy compared to the other crops. Observed impacts relate mainly to production aspects of food security rather than access or other components of food security. Since AR4, several periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions indicate a sensitivity of current markets to climate extremes among other factors.”

Widespread impacts in a changing world. Global patterns of impacts in recent decades attributed to climate change. Impacts are shown at a range of geographic scales. Symbols indicate categories of attributed impacts, the relative contribution of climate change (major or minor) to the observed impact, and confidence in attribution. Graphic: IPCC

Widespread impacts in a changing world. Global patterns of impacts in recent decades attributed to climate change. Impacts are shown at a range of geographic scales. Symbols indicate categories of attributed impacts, the relative contribution of climate change (major or minor) to the observed impact, and confidence in attribution. Graphic: IPCC

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) contains contributions from three Working Groups. Working Group I assesses the physical science basis of climate change. Working Group II assesses impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, while Working Group III assesses the mitigation of climate change. The Synthesis Report draws on the assessments made by all three Working Groups.

The Working Group II AR5 considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.

“Differences in vulnerability and exposure arise from non-climatic factors and from multidimensional inequalities often produced by uneven development processes. These differences shape differential risks from climate change. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change and also to some adaptation and mitigation responses. This heightened vulnerability is rarely due to a single cause. Rather, it is the product of intersecting social processes that result in inequalities in socioeconomic status and income, as well as in exposure. Such social processes include, for example, discrimination on the basis of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and (dis)ability.”

The Working Group 2 report has said that impacts from recent climate-related extremes (such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires) reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability. The impacts of such climate-related extremes include alteration of ecosystems, disruption of food production and water supply, damage to infrastructure and settlements, morbidity and mortality, and consequences for mental health and human well-being. The WG2 has starkly said that for countries at all levels of development, these impacts are consistent with a significant lack of preparedness for current climate variability in some sectors.

Winning the battle of wills on climate policy – 5 Mar 2010

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Winning the battle of wills on climate policy


05 March 2010

What a month. From high-profile resignations to Union Budget announcements, there has scarcely been a day without climate in the news. While the much-maligned but also fulsomely-supported IPCC chair and TERI supremo, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has managed to hold onto his post for another month, February saw the announced departure of both Shyam Saran and Yvo de Boer. Neither was a surprise.

In Saran’s case, there has been a war of attrition with the Minister of State for Environment & Forests, Jairam Ramesh, since it became apparent that the Minister had a mind of his own when it came to Indian climate policy and politics. Since he took office in May 2009, the Minister and the Prime Minister’s special envoy have been at loggerheads with the former a reformist and the latter in the traditional mould of a defender of the faith. (The faith being the per-capita based climate orthodoxy followed by Indian governments since year dot.)

Not unsurprisingly, the Minister has had a tough time of it battling the ranked masses of supporters of the orthodoxy in both his Ministry as well as the press. But his sheer bloody-mindedness in getting things done has had an impact. Week on week and month on month, one has seen the needle rise with ever more initiatives on the multi-headed Hydra that is climate change. The Minister has made his ministry rise to the tempo and consolidated his grip on environment and climate policy across the government.

In the battle of wills with Saran, the Minister has won. But in the battle for the heart and soul of India’s climate policy, the Minister is not yet done – he has barely just begun. This is not a short-game. It is a long-game of changing risk-averse and change-averse institutions and demonstrating the economic and political benefit of action on climate change. This requires a powerful new narrative and it is not clear whether the Minister has found his compelling story on this as yet. One that will connect with both the titans of industry and the tillers in the field.

The fact that he is not quite there yet was revealed by yet another Union Budget that failed to make provisions for the much-vaunted eight Missions of the National Action Plan on Climate Change. Two years on and still no clear allocation as to how these expressions of intent are to be funded and implemented. With the riveting exception of the National Solar Mission, the flagship mission of the Government, one is at a loss as to explain how the Government has placed climate change at the heart of its policy-making. It seems very much like an ad-hoc affair still.

At the sub-national level, though, one can see the impact that a little bit of energy on climate change can unleash. State after state – though still not in the double digits – appears to be moving on climate change and expressing a new-found ambition to be ‘carbon neutral’ or the greenest state in the country. Much finer ambitions than merely to have the highest state-level GDP growth rate in the country. Especially if that growth is green and sustainable, not carbon-based and cancerous. If the national politics on growth and climate changes as a result, we could well be in very different territory come the next elections.

Climate Change Primer

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Here is a primer on climate change – basic reading if you will. Once you have understood the basics, you will be able to explore climate change in greater depth. India Climate Portal will be glad to help you learn about climate change, take action, and reduce your impact.

EARTH’S CHANGING CLIMATE

Throughout Earth’s history, the climate has changed over long periods of time (thousands or millions of years). In the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat. These changes have been gradual, and attributed to small changes in the amount of energy the earth received from the sun1.

About seven thousand years ago, the last ice age ended, marking the beginning of the modern climate era and of human civilization1. Earlier in our history, humans hunted and gathered food, roaming over vast areas of the planet. Gradually, we learned to grow our food in one location or other, and started to settle down. With the progress of agriculture, use of advanced tools and assured food supply, our population grew. Soon we started producing cloth, machinery, and living together in villages, towns and cities. The Industrial Revolution got underway and coal (a fossil fuel) was burned to generate energy. Prosperity started to increase.

As prosperity increased, lifestyles changed, and we started using more and more machinery to do our work. We soon discovered petroleum (or crude oil), invented many ways of processing it and producing several products from it (petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, LPG and most of our primary energy sources). We started to use petroleum and coal for a sizeable proportion of our work; from running industrial machines, to transporting ourselves, paving roads, packaging goods and generating electricity. Today, our modern civilization depends on industrial activities, which use large quantities of energy; and our biggest source of energy is fossil fuels.

Over the years, we have been burning fossil fuels at faster and faster rates. When we do this, different kinds of gases and particles are released into the atmosphere. These are called emissions, and are gases like carbon dioxide and methane. These gases allow sunlight to enter, but block the heat from escaping: much like a greenhouse, causing a natural greenhouse effect.

However, here’s the catch!

Since 1751, roughly 351 billion tons of carbon dioxide (and other ‘greenhouse gases’), have been released into the atmosphere. Half of these emissions have occurred since the mid 1970s2, and the primary source of these emissions has been fossil fuels.

Global Fossil Fuel Carbon Emissions

Source: Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre

Today, there are more of these gases in the atmosphere than ever before, and emissions of carbon dioxide are accelerating. Since these gases trap heat, the Earth’s atmosphere is getting overloaded with these gases. We are also cutting and burning the earth’s natural sinks of carbon – the world’s tropical forests – at an estimated rate of 13 million hectares per year (deforestation). This is causing the Earth to warm in response1.

HOW DO WE KNOW?

We know that there is an overload of emissions in the Earth’s system from measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide: CO2 levels are higher today than at anytime in the past 650,000 years1!

Source: NOAA; NASA

WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

A result of so much carbon dioxide is a heating of the earth, or ‘global warming’. In effect, our climate is changing.

Scientists have found many serious changes in Earth’s environment. There is also little doubt that human beings are the cause of this current warming trend.

Global average surface temperatures: 1880 to 2005

Source: State of the World report 2009

  
Since the 1800s, which marked the beginning of Industrialization (see graph), temperatures have risen steadily. This rise correlates directly to the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.

Average global atmospheric temperatures have increased by 0.74 degrees Celsius in the past 100 years.

Depending on how much and how soon emissions are reduced, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts an additional 1.8- 4.0 degrees Celsius rise in temperature.

Massive ice sheets cover both Greenland and the Antarctic.

Source: NASA

In a study undertaken by NASA, scientists confirm that these ice sheets are losing much more ice to the sea than they are gaining from snow fall. This changes how much water will stay locked in ice and snow, and increases the sea level. Greenland lost 150 to 250 cubic kilometers (36 to 60 cubic miles) of ice per year between 2002 and 2006, while Antarctica (image below) lost about 152 cubic kilometers (36 cubic miles) of ice between 2002 and 2005.

The major store-houses of water – the ice caps and glaciers are receding. Snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere, permafrost extent, and Northern sea ice are decreasing4. There is also enlargement and increased number of glacial lakes and instability in permafrost regions4, owing to which buildings are collapsing.

Below is an image of meltwater from Greenland’s ice sheets

Source: www.redorbit.com

Global sea levels rose about 17 cm in the last 100 years. In the last ten years, the rate of increase per year has nearly doubled, from a rate of change of 2 mm per year, to 3.4 mm per year.

The graphs below show the rate of change of sea level.

Source: NASA

The rate at which land ice is being lost is shown in the illustration to the left. Areas where melt occurred for longer periods of time is shown in red. Each year, ice extent has decreased by 36-60 cubic miles in Greenland.

The extent of arctic sea ice has decreased by 38% as compared to 1979 to 2000 levels, as shown by the illustration on the right.

Source: NASA

Precipitation and evaporation patterns over the oceans have changed. We know this from increased salinity near the equator, and decreased salinity at higher latitudes4.

Biological systems are strongly affected by climate change3. In the terrestrial systems, there is evidence of earlier timing of spring events, leaf unfolding, bird migration and egg-laying; and a poleward and upward shift in ranges in plant and animal species. In marine and freshwater systems, the ranges and abundance of algae, plankton and fish are changing, and increasing evidence of impacts on coral reefs4

WHAT IS THE CAUSE?

Scientists have identified the kinds of human activities that are contributing to climate change.

The major sectors that emit greenhouse gases are energy supply, industry, deforestation, agriculture, transport, and waste incineration.

Adapted from: IPCC report 2007

These activities release three major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide is the largest contributor to climate change, as you can see from the chart below.

Adapted from: IPCC report 2007

WHAT ARE THE EFFECTS?

The expected impacts of an unstable climate and rising sea levels are increased droughts, decreased availability of drinking water, displaced populations, salinisation of soil and freshwater, massive extinctions of wildlife, decreased forest cover, coral bleaching, reduced crop yields, increased epidemics and increased intensity of tropical storms.

People living below the poverty line and dependent on land-based (agriculture) and marine occupations (fisheries) are likely to be the most seriously affected.

As you can see, these consequences don’t affect just others. It affects ALL of us in some way or other.

WHO IS TO IMPROVE THINGS?

We! That’s who.

YOU can be a very important part of the efforts to reduce climate change. You can become a leader of efforts at different levels. Here are some links that will help you learn more about climate change.

References: 1. California Institute of Technology, NASA: http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/; 2. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/; 3. State of the World report 2009; 4. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, Summary