India needs to address low-income people’s vulnerability to climate turmoil
By Bhaskar Anand
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On July 12, I went through a news article published by the BBC titled, “World Population Day: India will overtake China in 2023, says the U.N.” I was not surprised as I am a citizen of India and know first-hand the particulars of the situation. For years, in India, I could observe the often spoken about demographic changes closely. This article made me think more about the dire consequences of having such a huge population during the climate crisis, a reality of the 21st century.
Later in the day, I read another article from BBC published only a few minutes before, titled, “Uttar Pradesh auto: India tuk-tuk crammed with 27 passengers seized.” This second article was astonishing to me. Hence, I was curious about questions such as, “How can a tiny vehicle like a tuk-tuk carry 27 humans inside?” and “why do 27 people risk their health/life to ride inside a tiny tuk-tuk? Etc. By the morning, these questions simmered down in my brain, and I settled on a possible conclusion that this might be due to the desperation of passengers in the absence of money and the required local transportation system.
The lack of basic amenities for people from a low socioeconomic background is not limited to the transport system only. Instead, it also includes such common basic needs as safe food, drinking water, shelter, healthcare, and education. This strained demand and supply are due to the limited availability of resources, lack of supply chains, and the absence of an efficient resource distribution mechanism.
Although the current government has been trying to improve basic amenities to a certain extent for people of low socioeconomic backgrounds, a lot still needs to be done to uplift them. The speed of such transformation is prolonged. As a result, any significant change to develop resilience might take several decades. And we are running out of time as scientific studies indicate that extreme weather events such as heat waves, floods, storms and droughts are likely to become more frequent or more intense soon.
The climate change-induced recent heat wave resulted in the hottest March in India since 1901, with sweltering temperatures ranging from 45°C (113°F) to 50°C (122 °F). For the past three months, four to five intense heat waves have swept through the northern part of India with unbearably high temperatures. This heat wave affected several million people and killed more than 25 people. Simultaneously, the northeastern states witnessed torrential rainfall leading to floods and massive landslides. These cataclysmic extreme weather events affected over 4 million people, and more than 60 people lost their life. According to the Climate Risk Index, India was ranked fourth in 2015, fifth in 2018, and seventh in 2021 ― among the countries most affected by climate change.
This climate-induced turmoil could result in widespread climate migration, societal breakdown and economic collapse. Hence, the government should urgently assess and evaluate climate resilience to take the initiative for people coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds so as to address their vulnerability. Moreover, such catastrophic events will not spare the affluent “elites” regardless of their climate resilience at an individual level. Hence, the government needs to also involve the affluent in this climate initiative, who comprise the top 10 percent of Indians and control 77 percent of the country’s total wealth. They may perhaps support/boost this initiative by investing in environment-friendly projects and generating sustainable jobs in order to contribute toward society’s progress and build a collective resilience against climate vulnerability. As Nikos Kazantzakis once said, “The only way to save yourself is to endeavor to save others.”
Bhaskar Anand (https://www.bhaskaranandjha.com) is a doctoral student working in air quality and material application at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hanyang University.
