India’s climate calamities

Literature on climate change and its implications tend to use the phrase “impending impacts” to refer to potential or future calamities that may occur. However, the incidences of natural disasters in recent years, and the frequency and intensity with which they are occurring make one wonder if these impacts are still “impending”.

The devastating calamities India has faced over the past few months certainly seem to suggest that climate change is already manifesting and has come to alter, if not tear asunder, human lives.

The early summer months of 2024 saw the hottest ever heatwaves recorded in India with temperatures rising above 49°C in its northern regions. As per official figures, 110 people died due to heatwave-related health complications.

However, public health experts argue that this is gross undercounting of the actual numbers as heat is often not listed as the cause of death by health practitioners on death certificates. These experts believe that the heat-related deaths in 2024 alone could well be in the thousands.

While a heatwave was searing the northern Indian region, the northeastern states of Assam and Manipur witnessed intense rainfall leading to devastating floods. The state of Manipur, which is already crippled by an ongoing ethnic conflict, faced its third worst floods in 2024 after 1988 and 2015.

Triggered by cyclone Remal in the last week of May, unprecedented rainfall breached the Nambul and the Imphal river embankments. The floods in the Imphal valley caused three deaths and rendered thousands homeless overnight. There were reports of landslides along the National Highway 37 connecting Manipur to Assam.

The flood situation in the two states continues as of this writing with the combined death toll pegged at 48, while more than a million people have lost their homes and are sheltering in relief camps. The army, the national disaster relief force (NDRF) and their state counterparts have been stretched thin to deal with the disasters and restore infrastructure.

The economic costs of these calamities, which must be borne by the state funded through taxpayers’ money, are humungous. It is plain to see how these devastations hinder the development agenda, pushing the region years back into poverty and infrastructural and economic decline.

More recently, on 30th July, massive landslides occurred following incessant rainfall in the south Indian state of Kerala’s Wayanad district. The lives of the inhabitants of the picturesque region which usually attracts hordes of tourists and travellers were upended when two massive landslides wiped out their hamlets – Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala and Noolpuzha.

The death toll from this catastrophe as of this writing stands at 308 and thousands injured, many severely, even as rescue operations continue to be underway. The disaster has displaced nearly 10,000 people across 91 makeshift relief camps in the state. The tireless rescue efforts of the combined forces of the army, the navy, the NDRF and local volunteers are being strained and delayed due to persisting inclement weather.

In yet another incident of extreme weather-related disaster, on 3rd August, the northern Indian states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh witnessed cloudbursts causing a combined death of at least 23 people while scores remain still missing.

In a heart wrenching account of pain and loss, Anita Devi of Samej village in Himachal recounted how her entire village was swept away by the rain, bar her house alone. “Only our house survived the devastation, but everything else was swept away before my eyes. Now, I don't know who I should stay with,” Devi said to media persons.

Bakshi Ram, an elderly resident of the same village was away that fateful night. He told reporters that his family members of “around 15 people, were swept away in the flood”.

Here too, rescue operations led by the army, the central reserve police force, the NDRF and its state counterparts, and the home-guards are underway in the hope of finding survivors. The rebuilding of infrastructures such as roads, bridges and sanitation are bound to take some time, while hundreds of lives have been altered forever.

The capital city, New Delhi, and the satellite towns of Gurugram and Noida also proved that they were extremely ill-prepared to face heavy rains.

On 30th of July, the National Capital Region (NCR) received 100 mm rainfall for approximately an hour. This led to waterlogging in several areas prompting the weatherman to issue a red alert. There were massive traffic jams and blockades, causing immense inconveniences to commuters during the rush hour.

Ten people were reported dead in rain-related incidents in the Delhi NCR region. In another bizarre incident related to rain-led waterlogging, three students met an untimely death as they became trapped in the flooded basement library of Rau’s, the coaching institute where they were studying for the prestigious India Civil Services examination

These extreme weather events which India has faced in the first half of 2024 alone show how climate change is exerting its effects on the land and its people, while also exposing how ill-prepared the country is to face these calamities. There are reports which suggest that the devastating impacts of these weather events could have been minimised with better preparation, coordination, and planning.

Others see fault in the way in which infrastructural development projects have been designed and executed with scant regard for ecological vulnerabilities. A political blame game has ensued over how supposedly available warnings were not heeded in the case of Kerala. The unfortunate fact is that all the above arguments hold some truth to them.

Regardless of who is to be held responsible for the colossal damage and irreparable loss to human lives, the stark truth remains that India is ill prepared to meet the challenges of climate change. Science tells us with increasing confidence that frequent and intense weather-related calamities will occur in the Indian subcontinent. The impact these will have on human lives, infrastructure, and the economy will be several times higher than in regions with better coping capacities.

Climate change needs to be seen as a threat to the overall security of the people and by extension, that of the nation. With time running out very quickly to abate the global impacts of climate change, India must put all hands-on-deck to bolster adaptation and resilience mechanisms especially in its many fragile ecosystems and regions.

Climate change must take the political centerstage and become a subject of the political agenda, something which is sorely missing as was witnessed in the 2024 general elections. The future of the country is perilous as it stands today. The calamities witnessed over the past few months are writings on the wall in bold.

Robert Mizo is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delhi and holds a PhD in Climate Policy studies. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute, Tokyo.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.