Climate Change, Asia and the issues at stake
In this episode of Ekalavya Chaudhuri's blog...
Talking about the problem
Hi. In this post, I, Ekalavya Chaudhuri, am going to discuss climate change in the context of Asia. But first things first.
The Global Risk Report of 2019 by the World Economic Forum last year termed climate change the risk of greatest concern to all humanity. That is a recognition by an official institutional body of the magnitude of what the problem being faced at this moment in time is. At the current rates of reduction of emission pledges by signatory countries, we are on a direct trajectory to three degrees of warming over pre-industrial levels, and the situation can get even worse.
The challenge facing us is vast because of a confluence of two things. At the same time as business organizations whose interests lead them to deny the reality of climate change even as they most affect climate change have been able to be extremely organized in unethical decision making such as purchasing legislation on climate change or spending far more funds on public relations exercises than environmental organizations, the response is scattered and in disarray.
It is not necessarily the case that the majority of the world is part of a kind of worldwide populist conservative agenda. Some people, a deal of people in fact, might be got to care. But a time and generation fed by the rushing zing of swiftly uploading Twitter feeds or quick mass entertainment does not particularly really have the time for things like scientific reports, which for the major part are the means by which information has been attempted to be got out to the community. Again, Greta Thunberg’s valiant efforts with the School Strike for Climate are also something that the public can potentially get distracted from. The ready availability of things to distract aids a significant lack of awareness about the reality of the situation by the public at large, even though mostly everyone broadly knows that there exists such an issue as ‘climate change’.
This is a terrible problem, because it is only the public that can be an effective force in the long run. This is not only because it is the public that exercises the tools of direct democratic procedure through their voting in a great many countries, but also because they can wield a power that is indirect but nonetheless real power for that in voicing their opinion and in attempting to bring pressure upon their elected representatives.
It is a self evident fact that people wanting to affect a pulling back of the world from certain directions that it is heading into cannot financially hold the same might as those on the other side. To put this in perspective, large conglomerates outspent NGOs that had an agenda of trying to raise environmental consciousness by a factor of ten in the period 2000–2016. This is a disturbing development, but it does not signal the end of all possible hope.
The public need not, like Jon Snow in the series Game of Thrones, know nothing.
The possible solution is to be getting the information out anyhow. This means talking about the problem anywhere, using any means possible. The formats and forums need to move from the traditional and conventional, where clearly certain lobbies hold the economic power, to more creative and ingenious ones.
We absolutely have to get the information about the issues at stake out there.
If Pope Francis can do it in the form of an encyclical (as he did with Laudato si’ shortly before the Paris climate summit of 2015), then we as lesser privileged actors can equally do it through a scribbled blog post on Medium or a non connected comment on YouTube’s community or a vlog just got out there; anything we can do that is an attempt to get the information out and get a conversation going is a positive step to help. And if there is to be a hope, this needs to be a continuous process, one that in the mode of speech attributed to Winston Churchill, necessarily must involve never giving up, never giving up, never giving up.
The Global Risk Report of 2019 by the World Economic Forum last year termed climate change the risk of greatest concern to all humanity. That is a recognition by an official institutional body of the magnitude of what the problem being faced at this moment in time is. At the current rates of reduction of emission pledges by signatory countries, we are on a direct trajectory to three degrees of warming over pre-industrial levels, and the situation can get even worse.
The challenge facing us is vast because of a confluence of two things. At the same time as business organizations whose interests lead them to deny the reality of climate change even as they most affect climate change have been able to be extremely organized in unethical decision making such as purchasing legislation on climate change or spending far more funds on public relations exercises than environmental organizations, the response is scattered and in disarray.
It is not necessarily the case that the majority of the world is part of a kind of worldwide populist conservative agenda. Some people, a deal of people in fact, might be got to care. But a time and generation fed by the rushing zing of swiftly uploading Twitter feeds or quick mass entertainment does not particularly really have the time for things like scientific reports, which for the major part are the means by which information has been attempted to be got out to the community. Again, Greta Thunberg’s valiant efforts with the School Strike for Climate are also something that the public can potentially get distracted from. The ready availability of things to distract aids a significant lack of awareness about the reality of the situation by the public at large, even though mostly everyone broadly knows that there exists such an issue as ‘climate change’.
This is a terrible problem, because it is only the public that can be an effective force in the long run. This is not only because it is the public that exercises the tools of direct democratic procedure through their voting in a great many countries, but also because they can wield a power that is indirect but nonetheless real power for that in voicing their opinion and in attempting to bring pressure upon their elected representatives.
It is a self evident fact that people wanting to affect a pulling back of the world from certain directions that it is heading into cannot financially hold the same might as those on the other side. To put this in perspective, large conglomerates outspent NGOs that had an agenda of trying to raise environmental consciousness by a factor of ten in the period 2000–2016. This is a disturbing development, but it does not signal the end of all possible hope.
The public need not, like Jon Snow in the series Game of Thrones, know nothing.
The possible solution is to be getting the information out anyhow. This means talking about the problem anywhere, using any means possible. The formats and forums need to move from the traditional and conventional, where clearly certain lobbies hold the economic power, to more creative and ingenious ones.
We absolutely have to get the information about the issues at stake out there.
If Pope Francis can do it in the form of an encyclical (as he did with Laudato si’ shortly before the Paris climate summit of 2015), then we as lesser privileged actors can equally do it through a scribbled blog post on Medium or a non connected comment on YouTube’s community or a vlog just got out there; anything we can do that is an attempt to get the information out and get a conversation going is a positive step to help. And if there is to be a hope, this needs to be a continuous process, one that in the mode of speech attributed to Winston Churchill, necessarily must involve never giving up, never giving up, never giving up.
Listen up: the sea levels are rising all around us.
What's Going to Happen in the Asian Context?
With the increasing advent of climate change, we will need to adapt to a series of changing conditions in Asia. We will need, to be precise, to adapt and make modifications in how we work and function as a species, how we operate our businesses, be prepared to see transformations in the places we can continue to live. To fully get a sense of all of this, it is important to give though both to what will come, and some of the things that have already happened. This article will attempt to give you introductions to both.
(For the information in this article, I am indebted to Amitav Ghosh's brilliant book The Great Derangement. If you wish for further insights, you ought to get hold of it here.)
As a victim of climate change, in the coming years the lives and livelihoods of half a billion people in South and Southeast Asia are at risk. This will be a disproportionate number of people at risk, if one considers this region in comparison to the world. Furthermore, even within this disproportionateness, there will be another: women and the poor are going to be significantly disproportionately affected.
Extreme Climatic Events
•In the Sunderbans region of West Bengal, there is going to be a series of extreme climatic events in the future.
•This will inevitably ultimately make living unsustainable in the region.
•It will make modes of livelihood at present still possible disappear as well.
•This will inevitably ultimately make living unsustainable in the region.
•It will make modes of livelihood at present still possible disappear as well.
Sea Level Rise
Sea level rise and increasing intensity of storms will make large scale inundations likely all along the coastline of Asia.
Some situations that have occurred already:
•The partial inundation of Bhola Island (just one island of Bangladesh) has led to the inundation of 5,00,000 people.
•The 1971 Bhola cyclone is estimated to have killed 3,00,000 people.
•In 1991, a cyclone in Bangladesh resulted in 1,38,000 dead, of whom 90 per cent were women.
Some situations that have occurred already:
•The partial inundation of Bhola Island (just one island of Bangladesh) has led to the inundation of 5,00,000 people.
•The 1971 Bhola cyclone is estimated to have killed 3,00,000 people.
•In 1991, a cyclone in Bangladesh resulted in 1,38,000 dead, of whom 90 per cent were women.
Rising Sea Levels Mean...
•In India, a rise in sea level can lead to the loss of 6000 square kilometres of the landmass of India. Many of the offshore low lying islands like the Lakshadweep chain could disappear altogether.
•Rising sea levels could result in migrations of up to 50 million people in India and 75 million in Bangladesh.
•In the event of a 1 metre rise in sea level, more than a tenth of Vietnam’s population will be displaced.
•Rising sea levels could result in migrations of up to 50 million people in India and 75 million in Bangladesh.
•In the event of a 1 metre rise in sea level, more than a tenth of Vietnam’s population will be displaced.
The Curious Case of the Disappearing Rivers
•The extraction of resources are making delta regions across Asia (eg: the Irawaddy, Indus, Mekong) subsidise much faster than oceans are rising.
•Southern regions of Asia are particularly vulnerable, eg: the deltas of the Chao Phraya, the Krishna-Godavari, the Ganges-Brahmaputra, the Indus.
•The Indus, on which Pakistan is critically dependent, has been exploited to a point where it no longer reaches the sea and as a result salt water has pushed inland by 65 km, swallowing up over 1 million acres of agricultural land. The river, in fact, has disappeared.
•Southern regions of Asia are particularly vulnerable, eg: the deltas of the Chao Phraya, the Krishna-Godavari, the Ganges-Brahmaputra, the Indus.
•The Indus, on which Pakistan is critically dependent, has been exploited to a point where it no longer reaches the sea and as a result salt water has pushed inland by 65 km, swallowing up over 1 million acres of agricultural land. The river, in fact, has disappeared.
Desertification and Salinification
•A serious risk are the geological processes of desertification and salinification due to the offleak from industry and certain methods of agriculture.
•24 per cent of India’s arable lands are turning into deserts. A 2 degree rise in global average temperatures will reduce the entire country’s food supply by a quarter.
•In Pakistan, 1,00,000 acres of land are getting turned into salt encrusted desert every year. Of the fields that remain a fifth are badly waterlogged, a quarter produce only meagre crops.
•In China, which feeds 20 per cent of the world’s population off 7 per cent of the world’s arable land, desertification had already in 2016 caused direct annual losses of 65 billion.
•24 per cent of India’s arable lands are turning into deserts. A 2 degree rise in global average temperatures will reduce the entire country’s food supply by a quarter.
•In Pakistan, 1,00,000 acres of land are getting turned into salt encrusted desert every year. Of the fields that remain a fifth are badly waterlogged, a quarter produce only meagre crops.
•In China, which feeds 20 per cent of the world’s population off 7 per cent of the world’s arable land, desertification had already in 2016 caused direct annual losses of 65 billion.
The water crisis
•Asia has an accelerating water crisis.
•The rivers that sustain China and South and Southeast Asia rise in Tibet and the Himalayas. The waters stored here, in the form of accumulations of ice, sustain 47 per cent of the world’s population.
•This region is warming twice as fast as the average global rate.
•By some reckonings, one third of the Himalaya glaciers will disappear in the next thirty years. As the melting of the glaciers accelerates, moreover, variations in river flows will increase, falling to unprecedented lows in dry seasons (Asia will face catastrophic water shortages within a decade or two) and causing huge water inundations in summer months (eg: the Kosi disaster of 2008 in Bihar or the 2010 Indus floods). Water will emerge forth taking away cities, and leaving the site thereafter an unknown one.
•The rivers that sustain China and South and Southeast Asia rise in Tibet and the Himalayas. The waters stored here, in the form of accumulations of ice, sustain 47 per cent of the world’s population.
•This region is warming twice as fast as the average global rate.
•By some reckonings, one third of the Himalaya glaciers will disappear in the next thirty years. As the melting of the glaciers accelerates, moreover, variations in river flows will increase, falling to unprecedented lows in dry seasons (Asia will face catastrophic water shortages within a decade or two) and causing huge water inundations in summer months (eg: the Kosi disaster of 2008 in Bihar or the 2010 Indus floods). Water will emerge forth taking away cities, and leaving the site thereafter an unknown one.
Conclusion
We will inevitably be moving into a time where changes will be forced on us, if we do not make such changes ourselves. Here the changes being spoken of are changes in terms of how we live our lives, conduct our businesses, and consume the resources we consume. We need to have proper policies in place. It is best to be aware, conscious and prepared. That way, the coming jolt will be less of a jolt when it happens. Otherwise, we will have significant trouble in making the adaptations we will need to.