Warning bell from UNEP report on planetary health: Will India be uninhabitable by 2035?

By Shankar Sharma* 

The contents of a recent UNEP report is very disconcerting for the entire planet; but much more so for our country with a huge and growing population and already constrained natural resources.

The report says among other things: "...It has become clear that the world is facing a different context than it faced even ten years ago. Some of the issues are the same, but the rapid rate of change combined with technological developments, more frequent and devastating disasters and an increasingly turbulent geopolitical landscape, has resulted in a new operating context, where any country can be thrown off course more easily and more often...

"The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste is feeding into human crises such as conflict for territory and resources, displacement and deteriorating health..."

Indeed, the United Nations Environment Programme's "Navigating New Horizons" is a rigorous exploration into the near future of planetary health and human wellbeing based on current scientific studies that also involved a survey to rank various threats. 

The report insists that its intent is not to forecast but to “foresee” the future. The report foresees potential environmental, economic, social and geopolitical disruptions; makes an assessment of when they will hit us; and what is the perception of the respondents in the survey to each of these.  “The disruptions presented in this report are not guaranteed to happen. But they could happen,” says Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.

One of the disruptions that the assessment has dealt with is: whether vast land areas in the planet would become unfit for human habitation due to climate emergency impacts like wildfires, flooding, and intolerable heat besides other few. An associated disruption to this one is the mass migration to be triggered by the unsuitability of climate. 

The UNEP assessment says that this disruption can be felt in the next seven years, that is by 2035. Nearly 90 per cent of the respondents in the survey that fed into the assessment feel that this disruption is “likely, very likely and virtually certain” to hit us. The areas that will be severely crippled by this unbearable temperature include India. The temperature rise will breach what is known as the “human climate niche”, a temperature band between 52- and 59-degree Fahrenheit.

Projection by IISc 10 years ago that Bengaluru may become uninhabitable by 2020-25 because of  very low ground water table has come true

This report is worth our serious consideration; especially for our leaders. The critical urgency emphasised in this report has huge relevance to what the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, stated last month on the occasion of World Environment Day.  He said: "The battle to secure the planet's future will be won or lost in the next 18 months".

Hence, the fast-escalating scenario of climate emergency, can be ignored only at our own peril within a few decades. Hence, the "too-small, too-late" net zero target of 2070 India can only be called ridiculous, and irresponsible.

The question, "Will India be uninhabitable by 2035?", as in an opinion piece forwarded below, must not be dismissed as scare-mogering to say the least.  This potential scenario can be viewed as having tell-tale signs by what we have been experiencing in recent years: heat waves, droughts, forest fires, unseasonal rains, pollution contamination of air, water and soil, increasing levels of community health concerns; ever escalating demand for water, land, minerals and energy; almost the complete absence of accountability for our political leaders and bureaucrats etc.

The projection by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) about 10 years ago, that Bengaluru may become uninhabitable by 2020-25 because of the very low ground water table, has almost come true even in 2024, when the city faced a very serious water supply scenario, compelling many families to leave the city.

Can we expect our leaders to seriously consider the associated warnings in many such reports in recent years?

Aleast, civil society groups must not ignore such science based warnings, and should try to do their best in lobbying with our lawmakers to do all that is feasible. 

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*Power & Climate Policy Analyst