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Friday, March 29 2024
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Climate change

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Dr V. Basil Hans, Associate Professor of Economics & Dean, Faculty of Arts, St Aloysius Evening College, Mangalore

Introduction
Climate change and variability (hereafter CC&V), is a rapidly emerging and serious global problem. It is affecting Indian economy, particularly agriculture, adversely. CC&V has assumed alarming proportions, and is a sizeable threat to sustainable development with major and adverse impact on environment, natural resources, food security, infrastructure, employment and income. We must study CC&V both as an environmental aspect in general and its impact on agriculture in particular.

Meaning of Climate Change
• The term ‘global climate change’ refers to the rising temperature of the earth due to an increased amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs).
• The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines climate change as “a change in the state of climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.”
• The Ministry of Environment & Forests, Government of India says that “Climate change may be due to natural internal processes or external forces, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use.”

Causes of climate change
Various explanations for climate shifts are given by scientists. One explanation is natural warming, i.e. periodic changes in sunlight intensity resulting from Milankovitch cycles (named after the Siberian scientist Milutin Milankovitch who first discovered them in the 1920s). These are 26,000-year cycle, 40,000-year cycle and 100,000-year cycle. Two important shorter-term climate changes are El Nino and anthropogenic global warming. Since climate and global warming is closely related to human activities and economic development including agricultural system, there is a serious concern about its stability. Human activities causing global warming are –
• Land use change for human progress
• Burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal
• Burning other biomass
• Deforestation/clearing of lands
• Mining limestone for cement making
• Vehicle and industrial emissions
• Volcanic eruptions
• Release of GHGs into the atmosphere
• Increase of aerosols in industrial cities

Impact (or Effects)of CC & V
CC&V has an important impact on resources, rainfall, revenue and livelihood. Based on past and present assessments, various predictions have been made. There are one billion poor people in the world who are vulnerable to climate change, desertification and land degradation, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity and livelihood. India alone accounts for about 26 per cent of this population and China about 17 per cent.
In India, climate change could put additional pressure on ecological and socio-economic systems that are already under stress due to rapid urbanisation, industrialisation, and economic development. One noticeable feature/effect of climate change is hot weather. In India, in 2005 the temperature anomaly was 0.410°C. In 2009 – the warmest year it was 0.913°C. Other serious consequences are –
• substantial dieback of tropical forests and grasslands particularly in parts of South America and Africa
• The availability of water in the rivers of Australia, India, southern Africa, South America, Europe and the Middle East is expected to decrease.
• Cereal yields in Africa, the Middle East and India are likely to decline.
• A rise in sea level could inundate and erode coastal areas, increase flooding and salt-water intrusion; this will affect coastal agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, freshwater resources, human settlements and tourism
• Incidence of water-borne diseases, heat stress and vector-borne diseases such as malaria is expected to increase. All developing countries facing the problems of population and economic growth will be put under even greater stress
• The intensity of extreme rainfall events is projected to be higher in a warmer atmosphere, suggesting a decrease in return period for extreme precipitation events and the possibility of more frequent flash floods in parts of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
• In India 1500 Himalayan glaciers 67% are retreating
• Agriculture in the coastal regions of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Karnataka is likely to be affected negatively. S.K. Sinha and M.S. Swaminathan estimate that a 2°C increase in mean air temperature could decrease rice yield by about 0.75 ton/hectare in the high yield areas and by about 0.06 ton/hectare in the low yield coastal regions.
• A 0.5°C increase in winter temperature would reduce wheat crop duration by seven days and reduce yield by 0.45 ton/hectare.
• Besides quantity, quality also is going to be affected. According to the scientists, under elevated CO2 cooked rice grain would be firmer but with lower concentrations of iron and zinc which are important for human nutrition.

Suggestions (strategies) to mitigate CC&V
As we face a warmer future, a two-pronged effort is needed to counteract the impacts of climate change: (i) international agreements to reduce GHG emissions, and (ii) initiatives to help society adapt to the future climate. Autonomous efforts need to be encouraged, in-keeping with geopolitical and economic conditions. We suggest the following mitigation/adaptation steps.
• Develop new bio-indicators of CC&V
• Develop genotype heat and drought tolerant
• Encourage new land-use systems
• Enhance integrated and value-added weather management services
• Improve the inventories of GHG emissions from agriculture and allied activities
• Encourage organic farming and plant and soil health practices
• Enhance rational capacity on carbon trading in agriculture
• Let climate literacy and computer literacy go hand-in-hand
• Develop a compendium of traditional and modern knowledge and expertise on CC&V
• Bring together all stakeholders – scientists, farmers, students, researchers, administrators etc. for the common cause of capacity building and livelihood security
• Periodically evaluate impact as well as mitigation potential and make suitable interventions to bridge unhealthy gaps

Conclusion
Most of us know the (climate) change. Now is the time to face its challenges. We must do it for the sake of ecological balance and sustainable human development. Agricultural scientists and statisticians have devised livelihood indices for different agro-climatic zones. Even green business concept and practice are slowly picking up. Climate change has entered the domain of civil society. One can be optimistic about concentrated action to help fulfil the global goal of climate stabilisation. To conclude, addressing problems of risk and vulnerability within a production and marketing system requires an understanding of the cross-cutting issues and the multiple approaches to managing and coping with it.

About the author:

Dr V Basil Hans has been teaching at St Aloysius College institutions for the past three decades. He has produced six MPhils and three PhDs. He has written more than 200 articles in journals, books and newspapers in English and Kannada. He is serving as honorary editor in more than 30 journals. He has presented papers in more than 75 conferences. He has written more than 20 books. His book on Digital Banking will be translated into eight foreign languages.

 

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