India is building climate resilience; Europe should support

Resilience is not the absence of shocks; the real measure of resilience is how quickly a society, an economy or a polity can bounce back. Major economies across the world continue to be buffeted by a continuing pandemic, a raging conflict, rising energy costs, and an imminent recession.

Dr Arunabha Ghosh is CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), one of the world’s leading climate think tanks, and a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. Nandini Harihar is Research Analyst at CEEW.  

Although the International Monetary Fund has described India’s economy as a “bright light”. But to become a USD 10 trillion economy by 2030, India must buffer against regional and global shocks. Into this milieu comes the continuing challenges posed by climate change. As we approach another round of climate negotiations (COP27 in Egypt), India and the European Union will continue to negotiate longstanding issues of finance and technology. But there is also an opportunity now for both parties to find common ground and define common purpose on climate resilience.

It is evident that the Earth is warming at an alarming pace with consequences for all regions. Globally, August 2022 was Earth’s sixth warmest in 143 years. For Europe and North America, this was the warmest August on record; fourth warmest for Asia.

India has already experienced extremes this year, including the hottest summer since 1901 and the warmest March on record. The Indian Meteorological Department issued heatwave warnings for at least five states. World Weather Attribution estimates that the probability of such an event in 2022 has risen by a factor of around thirty thanks to climate change. From long dry spells, India also witnessed one of the wettest Octobers.

Meanwhile, the mean temperature over land across Europe has risen by 1.94°C to 2.01°C from the pre-industrial period, according to the European Environmental Agency. In 2022, nearly all countries and more than 60 per cent of the European continent were impacted by varying degrees of drought, when such conditions were not expected before 2050. Studies estimate that the UK is now 10 times more likely to reach 40°C compared to the pre-industrial era. Temperatures also exceeded 40°C in France, 45°C in Spain and 46°C in Portugal, with Belgium witnessing its warmest August since measurements began in 1833. More than 660,000 hectares of forests have burned since January.

The climate crisis is not only about heatwaves, droughts, and heavy rainfall. Those are the direct impacts. The wider challenges emerge on four counts, namely human security, food security, infrastructure impacts, and macroeconomic pressures. It is also important to recognise efforts being made to build resilience.

First, extreme weather continues to have fatal consequences, impacting lives and livelihoods. But India has managed to use early warning systems to save lives. While the Super Cyclone in Odisha in 1999 cost about 10000 lives, Super Cyclone Amphan in 2020 (of similar intensity) resulted in fewer than 100 deaths in India. This year, more than 1.3 million people were evacuated from Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh due to a sporadic and intensive monsoon season. This is a huge administrative effort but is certainly not costless.

Drought conditions in Punjab, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand severely impacted cropland and killed livestock. Furthermore, extreme heat conditions this summer destroyed 10-15 per cent of wheat crops in north India. Although India is food surplus and a food exporter, agricultural shocks increase food price inflation hitting the poor the hardest and creates policy dilemmas over continuing exports. In France, the corn harvest reduced by almost 18.5 per cent compared to 2021 and wheat yield was also significantly lower, due to the driest July. France is currently Europe’s third-largest wheat exporter after Russia and Ukraine, so reductions in output threaten food security elsewhere.

Governments can no longer claim extreme events as unforeseeable and must adopt national and sub-national climate action plans. Nineteen states in India have developed state heat-action plans, with more on the way. Maharashtra plans to modify market hours, provide public shelters, sprinkle mist in public places, and keep ice bags at public health centres. Ahmedabad city’s heat action plan includes best practices on warning systems and heat adaptation. Karnataka state’s plan includes warnings about when to break from all outdoor work. In July 2022 Tamil Nadu launched district-level climate change missions across its 38 districts.

In the last three years, India has incurred damages worth USD 7.2 billion — equivalent to nearly a third of the infrastructure budget for roads and highways — due to extreme weather events like floods. The real cost is likely to be higher since this figure reflects data from only 70 per cent of states. India aims to invest USD 1.5 trillion in infrastructure (at par with China and Japan) this decade. It is working on plans to develop cyclone-resilient power distribution and transmission infrastructure in its cyclone-affected eastern and western states to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity and support emergency services. Heavily climate-impacted states such as Odisha have already taken measures to minimise Low Tension Network damages through preventive maintenance and precautionary steps.

Repeated and rising climate shocks also increase the fiscal burden. Odisha on the coast, for instance, has allocated USD 131 million to its environment and climate department this fiscal year, but has had to set aside a larger amount (USD 505 million) for disaster management and flood control. Such distortion in fiscal burden takes resources away from other sustainable infrastructure investments. By one estimate, even before the Paris Agreement, central and state governments in India were already spending about USD 92 billion on various programmes linked to climate adaptation. As climate risks rise, governments will have to find resources to handle immediate shocks as well as invest in long-term resilience.

With both India and the EU having battled historic climate extremes this year, here are four ways to build climate resilience together.

First, cooperate on people-centric early warning systems. Hyperlocal risk assessments would help local administrations to understand the exposure of specific geographies to climate extremes and also forecast hazards. Early warning systems, based on credible sources of public communication, would then be needed to empower people to act when disasters strike, including forming groups of first responders. Early warning is also a tool to improve administrative preparedness and could help mitigate infrastructure and economic losses.

Secondly, regulatory authorities in Europe and India can collaborate to build a robust system of climate risk disclosures for businesses and financial institutions. Several major economies are making regulatory changes for firms announcing net zero. Disclosure requirements in the EU, India (but also China, Japan, the UK and proposed in the US) could benefit from less fragmentation and more coherence. A dialogue is needed among major economies on the issue of net zero regulation, but also with a view to having standardised metrics for assessing exposure to climate risks.

Thirdly, the EU should actively engage as a member of the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, which India has promoted. CDRI’s scope includes risk and resilience assessments, technical standards for resilient infrastructure, and sectoral focus on power, airports and telecoms. For every dollar invested in climate-resilient infrastructure, six dollars can be saved. The International Labour Organization also estimates that each million dollars invested in climate- and disaster-resilient infrastructure can create more than 650 jobs. Resilient infrastructure can reduce the extent of loss and damage, enhance adaptative capacity, and facilitate faster economic recovery.

Fourthly, to manage the macroeconomic shocks induced by climate change, the EU and India along with other major economies should promote a Global Resilience Reserve Fund. Capitalised via Special Drawing Rights, such a fund could serve as a cushion against the shocks that extreme climate events impose on vulnerable economies. India’s G20 presidency offers an opportunity to begin work on creating such a buffer for macroeconomic stability.

Climate change is the second greatest challenge facing humanity. The greatest challenge is a lack of empathy, a lack of understanding of the conditions of fellow humans in another geography. 2022 has reminded us of the common dangers we face yet shown how even the most vulnerable are fighting back. Once it ignites a sense of empathy, Europe can find common cause with India’s responses. Together, both economic powers can pave a path of collective resilience on which others can follow.