Climate Change and India

The latest Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2021 has placed India among the top 10 countries to have adopted substantial measures to mitigate climate change.
The index was developed by not-for-profit organisations Germanwatch and NewClimate Institute (Germany) together with the Climate Action Network.
This is for the second consecutive year India has been placed in the top 10.
According to a study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), about three in four of India’s districts are hotspots of extreme climate events such as cyclones, floods, drought, heat and cold waves and the study calls for building climate resilience.

According to the Transparency Climate report, published by Climate Transparency (an open global consortium), in the last 50 years there has been an increase of 0.6 degrees in temperature.
In the span of 1972-2005, India has witnessed around 250 extreme events and from 2005 to till date India has been victim of 390 extreme events due to which 75% districts are affected.
Another study shows that out of 75%, around 45% of the districts have seen swapping climate effects like floods, landslides etc.
At present, India is contributing only 6.8 per cent of global emissions and per capita emission is only 1.9 tonnes, in comparison, the emission of the United States is 13.5 percent of the global emissions and per capita is 15.52 tonnes. China contributes 30 per cent to global emissions while the European Union including the UK contributes 8.7 per cent.
India has been fair at tackling climate change upto large extent especially in the energy sector but it has spread its arms to other sectors like agriculture, water, fertilizers, protecting communities from floods and understanding climate variance.
Thus, such a pattern of climate change can affect the critical infrastructure and communities.

In the last 4 years, there has been a pause in action towards climate change because most important countries like the USA were not responsive.
The USA holds 25% of stock of GHGs in the world and is the second highest emitter in the world whose actions will be very useful in mitigating overall climate change.
The per capita emissions are high as well as the USA is one of the technological leaders which reflects a good opportunity for India to make international collaboration on Climate Change.
The USA is also a prime destination for technological finances.

1. Along with Climate change, the Adaptation factor also needs to be focussed which is becoming more important.

Integration of National action plan on climate change, disaster resilience plans at the national and district levels to ease the burden of finance.

Public private partnership for accessibility of localised information.
Bottom-up approach by creating climate risk Atlas at the national scale and integrating into surveillance management systems and providing basic access to common people.
Looking forward to “GREEN” coalition which means achieving Growth through renewables, enterprise (R&D) and nature.
The most important is the democratisation of Climate data.

India can speed up the momentum in energy transition as the cost of generation from renewables is very low and through which it can replicate in other areas.
A collaborative effort towards climate resilience and spearhead the coalition firstly to South-Asia level.
A Robust and integrated infrastructure for localised information and galvanised national action in countries to integrate negotiation on climate change.

The world is far more ready to tackle the issue of climate change and adapt climate resilience along with like minded countries coming together.

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