Wake-up call on the climate front

THE southwest monsoon has wrought havoc in many parts of the country. The monsoon rainfall so far has been above normal, and several extreme weather events have been reported. The hill states/UT — Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir — are the worst hit, along with Punjab, Rajasthan and parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Many cities and rural areas in southern states, too, have recorded heavy rainfall.

The loss of human life due to cloudbursts, flooding, landslides and mudslides is huge. So is the loss of private property and public infrastructure. The heavy rainfall has resulted in bridges collapsing, bunds giving way, even newly built national highways getting washed away, and hydel projects reporting severe damage. Vital transport links have been disrupted, and the crop loss is set to be massive.

The ordeal has not ended. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that the trend would continue. The monthly average rainfall across the country in September is most likely to be above normal. Most parts of the country are likely to receive normal to above-normal rainfall, posing risks like flooding, landslides, surface transport disruptions, public health challenges and ecological damage.

It is scientifically established that the Indian monsoon has been affected by climate change. Several studies have pointed out that the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events have increased since the 1950s over most land areas, and that human-induced climate change is likely the main driver of this increase. A synthesis of these findings has been reported in the periodic assessments issued by the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).

Experts attribute the increased intensity of the monsoon to stronger atmospheric moisture build-up over the Indian Ocean, which, in turn, is triggered by higher evaporation due to higher sea surface temperatures, as well as an increased land-sea thermal contrast. The increased level of atmospheric moisture causes a larger moisture flux and higher precipitation as the summer monsoon moves from the southwest to the east, carrying moisture from the ocean in large rain clouds. It means that the changing monsoon patterns being witnessed are linked to larger climate change.

So, should we simply blame climate change for whatever is happening and continue with ‘business as usual’ with our public policies relating to environment, urban planning, development, water resources, agriculture and so on? Not at all. First, climate change itself — as defined by the IPCC — is an anthropogenic or man-made phenomenon. For instance, if one of the key drivers of the monsoon — land-sea temperature difference during summers — is changing, it is due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity. Second, while extreme weather events (incessant rainfall in monsoon and extreme heat in summer) are going up due to climate change, their impacts (flooding, loss of human life, damage to infrastructure, etc.) are getting aggravated due to wrong public policies (concretisation, encroachment of riverbeds, destruction of hills, deforestation, etc.).

The solution lies in addressing climate change and faulty developmental policies simultaneously. First, we need to make all our public policies compliant with climate change. For decades, we have been saying this, but we see little action on the ground. The progress made under the national and state climate change action plans is limited to the promotion of renewable sources of energy.

Instead of focusing on a few sectors like energy or transport, the need is to mainstream climate change concerns in all public policies. For instance, while proposing or constructing a hydropower plant or a new highway or a tunnelling project in the hills, we should take into account not just immediate environmental concerns but also present and future risks arising due to climate change. The same applies to developmental projects in the plains where urban flooding has become a regular occurrence due to mindless concretisation, destruction of lakes and water bodies.

Second, we should thoroughly review the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regime. Over the years, it has been diluted, and clever ways have been devised to either circumvent its mandatory provisions or do away with it altogether. The most glaring example is the Char Dham highway project. The government agencies concerned avoided a comprehensive EIA by dividing the 825-km project into 53 smaller parts, each less than 100 km long. This way, they could avoid environmental scrutiny since the EIA is mandatory only for road projects exceeding 100 km.

Such segmentation of a large project to bypass environmental regulations was highlighted by environmentalists and raised in the Supreme Court-appointed committee. In some cases, environmental clearance was granted ex post facto to regularise projects initiated without EIA clearance. The apex court struck down the practice as illegal in May.

The disastrous results of wilfully ignoring ecological risks involved in large developmental projects and violation of EIA terms, particularly in the Himalayas, are visible now. Therefore, we not only need to revisit the EIA regime to make it more stringent but also incorporate climate change risks that may arise during the lifecycle of a project and ways to mitigate them. Projects can be designed to better withstand future climate conditions, reducing potential damage and disruption. For monitoring compliance, an independent mechanism should be developed.

Third, we need to conduct a ‘climate audit’ of all existing infrastructure — hydel projects, national highways, road and railway bridges, airports — not from a financial perspective but to check if it is climate-resilient. This is more urgently required for the infrastructure built before the EIA system kicked in. For projects which have received the green nod, the check should be about compliance with the conditions mandated at the time of their clearance.

Following the audit, necessary retrofitting measures should be initiated to make vital infrastructure climate-proof. As a first step, the environment ministry must develop a robust climate audit framework and requisite standards, protocols and tools for assessing whether existing infrastructure can withstand a changing climate. Then, a concerted, multi-sectoral national effort should be launched. The 2025 monsoon is yet another wake-up call.

Dinesh C Sharma is a science commentator.