Sounding the alarm

Shyam Saran

Former Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

THE draft of the 6th Assessment Report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just been released. Its conclusions must be taken seriously as it represents the consensus among climate scientists and experts. Each report had a significant impact in raising international awareness of the nature and intensity of climate change and in mobilising national and international action to deal with the challenge. The historic Rio Convention of 1992, which led to the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was inspired and informed by the first IPCC report of 1990 that drew attention to the accelerated pace of climate change and the urgency of tackling it through collaborative, multilateral action based on equitable burden sharing. The assessment reports and occasional special reports on specific issues constitute a veritable encyclopedia on climate change. The special report on 1.5°C issued in 2018 led to the implicit adoption of a lower target of 1.5°C for average rise in global temperature, rather than the 2°C limit enshrined in the Paris Agreement of 2015, which had 1.5°C as an aspirational target.

India is a major player because its decisions on energy security will have impacts, both on its own economy as well as on the world’s capacity to tackle climate change.

Looking at the series of IPCC reports since 1990, it becomes evident that: climate change is the result of man-made activities, in particular the adoption of a fossil fuel-based energy system; the ability to tackle climate change lies in the success in transforming the energy system away from fossil fuels; this is happening too slowly to make a difference; climate change is taking place at an accelerated pace; its impacts are and will be more severe in tropical and sub-tropical zones of the planet; beyond a certain temperature threshold (now thought to be 1.5°C), there will be irreversible and catastrophic changes in the planetary ecology; that failure to reduce global greenhouse emissions through an accelerated transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clean sources of energy will also place limits on natural and human adaptability to climate change; ensuring climate justice is an indispensable component of meeting the challenge of climate change; economic inequalities among nations and within nations diminishes both the capacity to mitigate emissions and to adapt to climate change impacts; and the phenomenon has become complex as it interacts through feedback loops with ecological degradation, biodiversity loss and population growth.

The sixth report is notable in several respects. It recognises the ‘interdependence of climate, ecosystem and biodiversity’. These domains are interlinked and cannot be addressed through interventions limited to each domain. The report goes even further in spelling out how climate change is now part of a much larger ecological challenge related to ‘biodiversity loss, overall unsustainable consumption of natural resources, land and ecosystem degradation, rapid urbanisation, human demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities and a pandemic’.

This leads to an explicit focus on what the report calls ‘coupled systems’ among climate, ecosystem and human society. But the agency of change is human society. Though this is not stated in so many words, the implications are clear: unless there is a change in human and societal value systems, it would not be possible to transition to a resilient and sustainable ecosystem. No technical fixes can solve the existential challenge humanity faces. Beyond technological transformation, there must be the transformation of society and its values and aspirations.

The report has considered the climate change challenge in three time periods, taking the 1850-1900 period as the base. There are 2021-2040 (near-term), 2041-2060 (mid-term) and 2081-2100 (long-term). The current period (2011-2020) has already seen a temperature rise of 1.09°C. The report concludes that ‘there is a greater than 50% likelihood that global warming will reach or exceed 1.5°C in the near term, even in the very low emissions scenario’.

Going back to the Special Report on 1.5°C, it has a section on the more specific impacts on different regions of the world. This has a particular relevance to India and the subcontinent. There is reference to the likely rise in sea levels which would endanger some of India’s key coastal cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. There will be large-scale climate-induced migrations, both inland and across borders, and could reach 40 million by 2050. There could be large-scale adverse impacts as a result of the melting of glaciers in the Himalayan zone, which could cause glacial lake outburst floods in the short run and affect the perennial snow-fed river systems in the long run. These rivers could end up as seasonal flows, worsening water scarcity and reducing food security throughout the densely populated Indo-Gangetic plain. There will be significant health impacts as the frequency and intensity of heat waves increase in our tropical zone.

The report has included some promising examples of successful mitigation and adaptation but these are few and far between. These are like band-aids on a wound that is spreading and festering. We need to take most seriously the report’s key conclusion: ‘There is a narrowing window of opportunity to enable climate-resistant development.’

For every country, the response to this mounting challenge has to be both in terms of domestic action as well as multilateral diplomacy. India is a significant player because decisions that it takes on ensuring its energy security will have major impacts, both on its own economic prospects as well as on the world’s capacity to tackle climate change. An accelerated shift towards renewables and cleaner sources of energy would enhance India’s energy security and contribute to global action. The ongoing Ukraine war is seriously affecting our access to gas and oil imports and their rising prices are draining our foreign exchange reserves. Even the prices of coal have gone up. It should be our effort to ensure that the latest geopolitical crisis does not shift attention away from the need for enhanced multilateral focus. The disaster that awaits us round the corner will have consequences which may dwarf even the terrible tragedy unfolding in the heart of Europe.

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