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While the looming threat of rising temperatures globally will affect the most vulnerable communities, it’s not too long before it reaches our doorsteps, too.

It’s blowing hot and cold–here’s why climate change is real

The looming threat of rising temperatures globally will affect the most vulnerable communities as it always has, but it’s not too long before its long shadow reaches our doorsteps, too

Across the asphalt roads of Tengnoupal in Manipur, the heat fumes rise as they do on a freshly tarred road. For the 33-year-old grocery shop vendor Thongam Yumnam, the alternatives are depressingly few—he can cover the facade of his makeshift shop with a white cloth but that would mean driving away potential customers, or he can fight the heat by throwing bucketfuls of water on the road in front of his shop that will momentarily settle the dust and provide respite from the violent heat. But that would mean fending off customers again, because no one wants to step into a puddle. Besides, water cuts have only increased, and wasting water on the road is a privilege Yumnam cannot afford.

For a few months in mid-2022, Manipur was nearly inhabitable, particularly for those who eke out a living on its unforgiving roads, the cheap asphalt accentuating the heat, the dismal lack of water pumps and water cuts that turned even the capital, Imphal, into a dystopian desert village. The reason? The heavy downpour in the form of pre-monsoon rainfall abruptly stopped, making way for the unbearable Celsius. 

“We’re helpless before the gods,” Yumnam tells The Established. “What can we do?  In a world where modern man plans to settle on Mars, surely there is a better world for us here on earth?”

If we thought 2022 was a sad anomaly compounded due to delayed rainfall, premature pre-monsoon showers followed by a long dry spell and a stressed global supply chain owing to the Russia-Ukraine War that was responsible for a slow wheat sowing season. Image: Getty 

If we thought 2022 was a sad anomaly compounded due to delayed rainfall, premature pre-monsoon showers followed by a long dry spell and a stressed global supply chain owing to the Russia-Ukraine War that was responsible for a slow wheat sowing season. Image: Getty 

As with any extreme climatic event, one needs to take into account the communities navigating the consequences on the frontline. Image: Getty

As with any extreme climatic event, one needs to take into account the communities navigating the consequences on the frontline. Image: Getty

The case of Manipur is not an anomaly, even in 2022. Last year, the heatwave across India and Pakistan made international headlines. In April, The New York Times reported how the scorching temperatures have damaged harvests, people grappling with heat strokes, and how “the lights are flickering in some cities amid surging demand for air-conditioning.” In Pakistan, the rising temperatures stretched across the glacial regions, too. Water from glacial lakes spilled into populated areas, leading to catastrophic floods that killed more than 1,700 people over four months. Moreover, several countries across Europe have been experiencing a ‘winter heat wave’ since the last few days of December 2022, with temperatures soaring to record highs for what is otherwise winter. Ski resorts in France and Switzerland have been opening up their bike trails as there is no snow to ski on. 

If we thought 2022 was a sad anomaly compounded due to delayed rainfall, premature pre-monsoon showers followed by a long dry spell and a stressed global supply chain owing to the Russia-Ukraine War that was responsible for a slow wheat sowing season, a recent World Bank report confirmed our worst fears: Rising temperatures are here to stay. The report, titled ‘Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector,’ warns that India could soon suffer severe heatwaves beyond the human survivability limits. It adds that lost labour from rising heat and humidity could put up to 4.5 percent of the country’s GDP—approximately $150-250 billion—at risk by the end of this decade.

Navigating heatwaves

As with any extreme climatic event, one needs to take into account the communities navigating the consequences on the frontline. The UN-Laadli and Red Ink-winning journalist Aatreyee Dhar has been reporting on the oft-ignored, even surprising, effects of climate change and rising temperatures over the past few years. Her October 2021 feature for Mongabay shed light on fisherfolk who are struggling to survive as one of Assam’s largest wetlands, Son Beel, shrinks away. 

“The most marginalised people such as informal workers will suffer because of heatwaves and it doesn’t help that the government never responds except when there are large numbers of deaths,” says Dhar. “Gujarat has taken some steps in this direction with regard to heat-proofing slums but our capital city, New Delhi, is silent. It seems that the issue is not important enough. There are policy workers mailing the government for proactive measures but there’s been no response.”

Dhar says that there ought to be an alignment between various departments of the state—from the local bodies to health and water departments. Her feature for Down To Earth highlighted how climate change-induced conditions and rising temperatures have led to tapeworms thriving inside the brains of Assam’s tea garden workers, further exacerbated by a crumbling health infrastructure. 

“There is also an angle of how caste dictates who gets access to civic amenities and who gets saved from such severe climate conditions, although this is an angle I’d missed out on in my reportage,” she adds. 

The way Dhar sees it, heatwaves and rising temperatures are not isolated events. Even a rise of one or two-degree celsius than normal leads to tropical diseases and uneven rainfall. “The range at which mosquitoes breed changes due to these events, allowing more mosquitoes to breed, and now you can find them in higher altitudes, too. Such tropical diseases will gradually move to higher terrains and spread across different locations.”

“The government has come with smart-city fellowships but those have also been very technologically centred with barely any mention of climate change.” Image: Getty

“The government has come with smart-city fellowships but those have also been very technologically centred with barely any mention of climate change.” Image: Getty

Empowering stakeholders 

On a policy level, experts believe that heatwaves and other severe climatic conditions can be tackled. Shashwat Shukla, who has worked as a local pathways fellow for UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network, says that empowering local bodies is the need of the hour as they are more acutely aware of the realities on the ground. 

“There is a need for localisation of research because people sitting in New Delhi cannot perform research on what’s happening in Bhiwandi or Nagpur,” says Shukla. “The government has come with smart-city fellowships but those have also been very technologically centred with barely any mention of climate change.”

He explains that the situation is similar to how doctors sometimes refuse to work in interior areas. The climate change solutions for Aurangabad will be very different from that of, say, Nagpur. The funding needs to flow bottom-up, even as the problem gets attention centrally. “But how does the problem look on the ground? You need locals to record the same.” 

“THIS HURTS ALL OF US. IF THE POLICY SCENARIOS GO UNCONTROLLED, WE’RE LOOKING AT HIGH TEMPERATURES THAT ARE DEVASTATING FOR CROPS AND FRAGILE ECOSYSTEMS ALIKE. WE ARE AT THE RISK OF LOSING HALF TO THREE-QUARTERS OF OUR GLACIERS BY MID-CENTURY”

Shashwat Shukla

In mid-December last year, Mumbai was the hottest city in the country on record, with temperatures soaring even four to five degrees than normal. Echoing Dhar’s sentiment, Shukla, too, agrees that rising temperatures cannot be viewed in isolation and must be understood holistically. 

“From the Arabian Sea to the Himalayas, the problem persists across geographies,” he explains. “I don’t want to say that the state isn’t doing anything. They have plans for decarbonisation for different sectors, plans for the Himalayan ecosystem and such. As a developing country, we are also trying to work on loss and damage plans where developed countries invest in us.”

He adds that due to rising temperatures, the temperature of the two water bodies surrounding India, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, will rise, thus disturbing the normal flow of monsoon, leading to changes in both land and air temperatures. “This hurts all of us. If the policy scenarios go uncontrolled, we’re looking at high temperatures that are devastating for crops and fragile ecosystems alike. We are at the risk of losing half to three-quarters of our glaciers by mid-century,” explains Shukla.

Also Read: Here’s what gets uprooted with the felling of mangroves for the bullet train project

Also Read: Indian environmentalists on Instagram who highlight the impact of the climate emergency

Also Read: How is the climate emergency affecting farmers’ harvests?


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