THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 05 September 2019 (India’s climate score: high on vulnerability, low on resilience (The Hindu))

India’s climate score: high on vulnerability, low on resilience (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Disaster Management

Context

• HSBC’s 2018 assessment of India ranks it as the country most vulnerable to climate change.

Major problems

• Against scientific warnings, carbon emissions continue to rise in China, the U.S., and India.
• Brazil is encouraging unprecedented deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. As forest fires worsen global warming, the hardest hit by the resulting floods, storms, heatwaves, and droughts will be in India.
• Cutting hurdles to investment can boost short-term growth and benefit interest groups. But damaging the environment would be self-defeating as it would impact long-term growth and well-being.

Vulnerability threat to India

• A number of Indian States have experienced extreme heatwaves in the past three years, and Delhi recently recorded a temperature of 48°C, its hottest day in 21 years.
• India’s exposure to climate hazards is heightened by the location of its coastline in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
• India also has a high population density located in the danger zone. For instance, Kerala, which experienced intense floods and landslides in 2018 and 2019, is among the States with the highest density.
• Increasing temperatures and changing seasonal rainfall patterns are aggravating droughts and hurting agriculture across the country.
• Extreme storms like the one that hit Odisha this year and the floods that swept Chennai in 2015 are damaging when infrastructure is not resilient.

Importance of resilience

• India must boost its coastal and inland defences.
• It needs to do more to build resilience in the sectors of agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, energy, transport, health, and education.
• The priority for spending at the national and State levels for disaster management needs to rise.
• Adequate resources must also be allocated for implementing climate action plans that most States have now prepared.
• India must reinforce its infrastructure and adapt its agriculture and industry.
• India should replace urgently its fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Way ahead

• Global leadership must act with greater urgency. Countries should switch rapidly from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy.
• There is a need for building much stronger coastal and inland defences against climatic damage.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of these organizations are matched correctly with their headquarters?
1. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - New York
2. World Trade Organisation - Geneva
3. World Bank - Washington DC

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
a) 1 and 2 Only
b) 1 and 3 Only
c) 2 and 3 Only
d) All of the above

Answer: C
Mains Questions:
Q.1) Why Disaster management plans must be prioritized in India?