Yet another alarm bell, act now on climate change
For three consecutive years, Karnataka was battered by heavy rains, resulting in landslides and floods. While its impact inevitably is on life, livelihood and the economy, its cause is climate change due to human activity. There is an irony. Human activity aims at sustaining populations through infrastructure development for better living. But nature-infringing projects trigger climate change. This expresses itself through devastation on the very human conditions that are sought to be improved.
The fragile Western Ghats is being eyed for more infrastructure projects. The impact is seen in massive landslides in the Malnad region besides flooding and washing away of roads in North Karnataka. The effects of climate change are seen not just in one region, but from Uttarakhand and Assam to Kerala and Maharashtra, with people suffering land and crop losses for years, forcing them to shut production and shift to urban areas. The devastating floods in Europe and China, besides the wildfires in Australia, Brazil and the US, have set alarm bells ringing more than ever before. Studies at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change (IISc) time and again indicate that the water-holding capacity in the atmosphere increases by 7% with each degree rise in atmospheric temperature, thus causing an increase in rainfall.
On Monday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest assessment report stated that the world, which warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial levels, is now moving towards the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark. This is the critical threshold, which means absolutely no time left for mitigation efforts. The symptoms are the warning bells: change in precipitation and heavier rainfall, coastal erosion due to rising sea levels, and rising temperatures (this July being the warmest since 1901)—even as tree cover is being depleted, giving way to what we call “development”, a recipe for landslides and loss of life and livelihood. The impact of climate change is gradual, but its mitigation should not be. The time to act on a war footing is now. Repentance is just not an option.