Chaliyar River, Keralites and Climate Emergency

It was the last day in Kerala. The one-week campus tour to IIM Kozhikode had finished. All of us decided to have a boat trip in the legendary Chaliyar River that flows through Kozhikode. As soon as the boat got off, torrential rains started, strong wind speed did not make any concessions either. We all got trenched, there was no space on the boat where we could have avoided the rains, except the room, that was there. We enjoyed the boat trip with rains, but missed out on scenery, plants, flora and the fauna alongside the river. Therefore, even after an hour of boating we longed for a second trip.?

I, on behalf of all, made a request to the caretaker available on the boat, if a second trip can be organized just after it had finished? He unwillingly called up his boss and came up with the answer—No. Even after so many requests he did not budge. A formal request to the higher-ups in Raviz Resorts also went unheeded- I remember being both annoyed and amused by the resort’s incessant commitment to rules, a rather rare phenomenon in India. ?

After our request was declined, we asked- what was the reason, they could have allowed one more hour and the heaven would not have fallen.

The management said- ‘’after 5pm, the river is available for fishermen only, this belongs to everyone. Besides that, we all have to take care of the ecosystem so that the river is alive and serves our next generations well.

We were quite impressed the way the management of the resorts seemed concerned about the ecosystem of the river and livelihoods thereto. Kerala is different because it thinks differently. When most of the states are not bothered about the sustainable development goals, Kerala is continuously showing the direction by remaining at the top in SDG index, where we Indians as a community, may seek a refuge as climate conditions throwing serious challenges.?

You can call it the hangover of our campus tour at IIM Kozhikode or how the conversation around the ongoing cop 27 has finally started piquing the interest of at least some classes of society, that I got stuck on my experience at the Chaliyar river.

Being conscious about fishermen’s rights still made sense, because the fishermen of Kerala are a strong community- not just because they spend their days navigating through the generous but equally ferocious backwater and coastal terrains but also because they are often also dragged into international arbitration, because the two great nations of India and Sri Lanka are yet to figure out a better system for keeping their fishermen in their respective economic zones.

The rising tides of climate change has only made this problem worse, more and more boats travel longer, unexplored distances due to shortage of fish and crabs in their traditional hunting waters. More and more boats thus, get caught and then lives are left at the mercy of international arbitration and diplomacy- not a fair price to pay for such a small mistake in which in fact we all have contributions registered by our name.

Latest research has found that humans have wiped off 70% of animal population since 1970. Unsustainable fishing and the rising ocean temperatures are writing a perfect tale of doom, something that we all will collectively go through both as Indians as well as human beings.

But I digress, it made sense to me that people of Kerala respected the fishermen community, but the comment about saving the river for future generations made not by an elite professor sitting in New Delhi but a simple, honest resort owner kept intriguing me. So I began to study the history of this Chaliyar river, there must have been some big turning point where such a thought must have settled in the hearts of the common folk- that we need to live sustainably and leave something for our future generations (something that is yet to dawn on most of us, I daresay) - or were the people Kerala just naturally “ahead”?

There is an acute paucity of data when it comes to mapping Indian climate change trends, such research while is present for the broader headings, still misses much of the inherent detailing that is required. As far as Chaliyar river itself was concerned, I found enough research to confidently call the river highly sensitive to changing temperatures and rainfall patterns and is severely threatened at the moment by climate change- the resort owners were not worried about nothing.

The development plans along the Western Ghats of India, that is being championed by the Karnataka government and many others in the South for construction of railways and other power projects seem idiotic beyond refute. The increased landslide and other extreme whether phenomena due to our existing tampering is already plaguing the local populations- both human and animal, by felling more trees and further destroying the “hotspot’s” ecosystem, we are once again playing a dangerous roll of the die, starting a butterfly effect for which we are not really sure how or where it will end.

But as I dove deeper into the topic, I began to understand Kerala’s truly unique position. The distance between its Eastern and Western Ghats ranges from 120 to 35 km, increasing Kerala’s vulnerability towards rising sea levels exponentially. NASA data shows that the rate of sea level rise has doubled in the last decade and the latest IPCC report once again reiterates how almost 40% of the 7,000 km long coastline that India currently possesses will be wiped off due to rising temperatures.

At a time when the “climate refugees” take an increasingly central position in global conversations including the ongoing cop 27 summit in Cairo, I wonder what contingencies a large subcontinent like India is prepared for. Housing refugees is already a major problem and has been duped in various shades of politics, it does not bode well that many Indians would soon become refugees in their own country.

What would a 4 degree temperature rise mean to the average Keralite- one can’t help but try to take a shot at answering this. Serious and multiple challenges lie ahead in Kerala’s mitigation and adaptation journey- one of the key ones being the change of land use patterns and housing the climate refugees.

What would happen to the lakhs of Keralites who will be displaced from their traditional houses in the next few decades, where will they be shifted? What contingencies is the state and central government prepared for? It is by making such plans public can a government both reassure the public as well as highlight the sheer impact this climate emergency has had on us.

The age old debate of ecology vs economy that India keeps championing in international climate negotiations should be scrutinized further for their internal application within the country. India is a large subcontinent in itself, it is also the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, however while the government seems most informed in these international summits, only a little bit of this wisdom trickles back to making policies at home.

It would be most curious to see the Keralites who have been a beacon of inspiration for most of the country and have continuously outperformed other states on most if not all social indicators, including its performance on climate change be so utterly destroyed through no fault of their own.

The “common but differentiated responsibility” tagline is applicable to Indian states as well, the same compensation India demands from the west for polluting the climate, the least developed parts of country can ask from the developed states causing climate action- after all many of these states have larger populations than most member countries of the UNFCCC.

Policy making needs to put this at the heart of their action, this would also make the whole process more indigenous, thereby naturally providing better results not to mention the “practice what you preach” philosophy that in case of India is pretty valid right now.

We have revised our NDC targets this year, but we have not differentiated how much of savings will come from which state- it is high time that the government starts thinking on these lines and empowering the climate conscious states to take more actions and penalizing the states not performing on it (that is exactly what common but differentiated responsibilities means), we need to do this before it’s too late.

Pawan Kumar is a?journalist specializing in economic issues. He is presently completing his postgraduate course in Public Policy from IIM Kozhikode.

Sankalp Suman , is co-founder of OffsetGo and an Environmental Engineer from Delhi Technological University.