17. 'Climate Change' is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change? (250 words)
- Climate change is a kind of disaster from which no country in the world is immune. India is also witnessing the impact of climate change and will experience more in the coming future. Climate change in a multi-dimensional way affecting the global environment (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere). The main factor with which it is affecting the global environment is increase in temperature of the earth. This factor is causing the other harmful events to occur.
- Food Security As climate change is affecting the monsoons (EI-Nino) along with increase in temperature, the event of pest attacks on the crops is also increasing. This factor will affect India's food security in the near future.
- Disasters India is prone to many disasters like cyclones, flash floods, droughts, tsunami, etc. All these disasters will increase in frequency due to extreme effects of climate change and this will lead to loss of life, large scale migration, rehabilitation cost, impact on food security, etc.
- Increase in Financial Burden As the responsibility to reduce the impact of climate change also falls on government and for doing this, India will have to move to renewable sources of energy like solar, wind etc. This will increase the financial burden on the government and divert the money from social security sector to this one.
- India's coastal and Himalayan states are more prone to the extreme effects of the climate change. They get affected in the following ways
- Coastal Areas As most of the Indian metro cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are located on the coast as water will intrude in these cities and can cripple the life and economy.
- This will also lead to the loss of fertile agriculture land on the coast. This in turn will force the people to migrate and result in the problem of slum in other cities. This intrusion of water will also affect the pisciculture and other aquaculture activities of the people and affect the livelihood of the coastal communities.
- The impacts of disasters will also increase in the coastal areas such as cyclones, this will lead to loss of life, disturbed coastal ecology livelihood and infrastructure.
- Himalayan States Himalayan states will also get adversely affected by the impact of climate change, as it will increase the events of melting of snow and glacier. This will cause frequent flash floods in the region which in turn causes landslides and damage to the infrastructure.
- These effects will negatively influence the food security of the region along with the livelihood of the people involved in the tourism sector.
- It has to be realised that we cannot delay our efforts in the cause of tackling the climate change and in this pursuit every country has to contribute.