Adaptation and Risk Analysis

The impacts of climate variability, climate change, and extreme events are visible globally and in India. The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 ranks India seventh, considering the extent to which India has been affected by the impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heatwaves, etc.). The index signals that the repercussions of escalating climate change are exacerbating and can no longer be ignored.

India is vulnerable, in varying degrees, to multiple disasters. The risks are compounded due to inherent vulnerabilities related to socio-economic conditions, environmental and climate change. India has several flagship programmes with large budgets, delivering serendipitous adaptation. The MGNREGS is one such programme implementing works related to Natural Resource Management.

This series of articles is a joint editorial initiative of ETEnergyworld and CSTEP. It will discuss some of the key sectors in terms of their contribution to India's total greenhouse gas emissions. In the first part of this series, we discussed the transport sector from a climate point of view and argued that a transport decarbonisation strategy should include diverse options for all segments to complement electrification.

The impacts of climate variability, climate change, and extreme events are visible globally and in India. The Global Climate Risk Index 2021 ranks India seventh, considering the extent to which India has been affected by the impacts of weather-related loss events (storms, floods, heatwaves, etc.). The index signals that repercussions of escalating climate change are exacerbating and can no longer be ignored.

Risk, in the context of climate change, is a function of three factors — hazards, exposure, and vulnerability.

Nine months into 2021, and India, a country with a population of about 1.4 billion has already experienced two devastating cyclones, searing heatwaves, and disastrous floods resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives and destruction of crops and property.

A new study by the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a Bangalore-based think tank, emphasises the urgent need to build climate resilience in western India. Titled ‘District-Level Changes in Climate: Historical Climate and Climate Change Projections for the Western States of India,’ the study indicates changes in climate patterns that are likely to occur in the western states of India—Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan—over the next three decades compared to the historical period (1990–2019).

Changing climate patterns—from warmer summer maximum and winter minimum temperatures to heavier and more frequent rainfall and resulting extreme events—are to be expected across the states in Central India, according to a new study by the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP).

Changing climate patterns – from warmer summer maximum and winter minimum temperature to heavier and more frequent rainfall – are to be expected across all states in South India, according to a new study by the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP).