During August in 2019, many parts of the world experienced extreme temperature rise to scale the 50 degree Celsius mark. During 2021, many parts in India experienced heat waves with the temperature fluctuating between 46 to 50 degree Celsius. In Manipur, Tengnoupal was the heavyweight with the scale fluctuating around 40 degree Celsius. The signs were there that everything is not okay.
By Salam Rajesh
The recent Tupul Railway Yard construction site disaster in Manipur where massive landslides buried alive around fifty workers and security personnel, brings to mind the reflections in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)’s 2012 report ‘Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report’ wherein it was explicitly stated that “Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters”.
The IPCC’s Special Report explored the challenge of understanding and managing the risks of climate extremes to advance climate change adaptation. The report states that ‘Weather and climate related disasters have social as well as physical dimensions. As a result, changes in the frequency and severity of the physical events affect disaster risk, but so do the spatially diverse and temporally dynamic patterns of exposure and vulnerability’.
Outlining strategies to manage climate related risks, the report opines that ‘Some types of extreme weather and climate events have increased in frequency or magnitude, but populations and assets at risk have also increased, with consequences for disaster risk. Opportunities for managing risks of weather and climate related disasters exist or can be developed at any scale, local to international. Some strategies for effectively managing risks and adapting to climate change involve adjustments to current activities’.
Further explaining factors inducing extremes, the report is of the opinion that ‘Climate extremes, exposure, and vulnerability are influenced by a wide range of factors, including anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability, and socioeconomic development’.
This explanation comes close to possible reasons for the man-made disaster that struck the Tupul work site in the early hours on Thursday last, killing and injuring several workers and security personnel stationed at the work site.
The ‘anthropogenic climate change’ refers to evident instances where humans have been primarily responsible for contributing to the pace of the processes of climate change, which otherwise is stated to be in its natural process as is being explained by the IPCC as ‘natural climate variability’.
Massive fossil fuel burning that results in excessive amount of carbon emission, large scale deforestation and physical modification of land for mining, oil and gas exploration, commercial plantations, industrial expansion, urbanization – all these had contributed their share to enhancing the process of ‘anthropogenic climate change’ as indicated by the IPCC report.
Many things are happening at the global scale with focus on the grassroots activism where the stress is on re-greening of degraded forest lands and the revival of wetlands, mangroves and peatlands. The urgency is on finding nature-based solutions to mitigate the factors that are immediate in influencing climate change processes at a faster pace than usual.
The average human in a place like Manipur can ask why is there so much of fuss on climate change, where apparently not much of impact is visible. The answer can be as simple as that the impact of climate change is not limited to political or continental boundaries. The results of glacial ice melts in the far north Arctic Circle can definitely have its impact on the far south, so much as the ice melts can result in sea level rise down south or influence in ocean and sea warming which can result in forming depressions – and then cyclonic storms.
There can be active deliberation as to what extent perceived impacts of climate change is apparently influencing erratic weather and climate conditions in the Bay of Bengal and the Northeast region, whereas, the increased frequency of cyclonic storms in the Bay of Bengal is being related to ocean warming as a process of global warming and global temperature rise.
It had already been predicted that the rainfall pattern in the entire Northeast region had broken down from the usual pattern, where the expected annual monsoons may not arrive in time or its regularity may break up now – meaning, the frequency may now either be deficit rainfall or excessive rainfall. Both ways, the impact is going to be on land, agriculture, and humans.
On this note, the IPCC Climate Risk Report (2012) is specific when it says that “There is evidence that some extremes have changed as a result of anthropogenic influences, including increases in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases”.
It further opines that “It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures at the global scale. There is medium confidence that anthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation at the global scale. It is likely that there has been an anthropogenic influence on increasing extreme coastal high water due to an increase in mean sea level”.
In sum, it is as much as saying that humans have basically been responsible for increasing the pace of the natural climate variability to such extent that the processes of global warming has been hastened as to result in extreme weather and climate conditions. The recent extreme Australian wildfire, and in western parts of the United States, is being attributed to the extreme heat generated as temperatures soar well above normal.
During August in 2019, many parts of the world experienced extreme temperature rise to scale the 50 degree Celsius mark. During 2021, many parts in India experienced heat waves with the temperature fluctuating between 46 to 50 degree Celsius. In Manipur, Tengnoupal was the heavyweight with the scale fluctuating around 40 degree Celsius. The signs were there that everything is not okay.
Quite appropriate for Manipur Government to reflect upon, so much as the Tupul disaster spells out, the IPCC report says, “Understanding the multi-faceted nature of both exposure and vulnerability is a prerequisite for determining how weather and climate events contribute to the occurrence of disasters, and for designing and implementing effective adaptation and disaster risk management strategies”.
Equally critical for the Government to reflect upon, the IPCC report entails that “Development practice, policy, and outcomes are critical to shaping disaster risk, which may be increased by shortcomings in development. High exposure and vulnerability are generally the outcome of skewed development processes such as those associated with environmental degradation, rapid and unplanned urbanization in hazardous areas, failures of governance, and the scarcity of livelihood options for the poor”.
(The writer is a media professional working on environmental issues. He can be reached at [email protected])