Dance of Democracy and Climate Change

Climate vulnerability is a reality that’s grappling the governments and power corridors, globally. All countries across the world are vulnerable, but in different ways. Therefore, in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable world, addressing vulnerability to climate change is the major challenge to sustainable development in this century.

As defined by IPCC, Climate Change Vulnerability?is the susceptibility of a species, system, or resource to the negative effects of climate change and other stressors, and includes three components: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.

As per the world economic forum, The Global Risks Report 2024, developed in collaboration with Marsh McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, released this year, Environmental risks continue to dominate the risks landscape.

India and the entire region of Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, and faces rising sea levels, heat waves, floods and droughts, and increasingly intense and unpredictable weather events as per studies of international agencies such as USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia and others.

As per CEEW, three in four districts in India are vulnerable to an extreme climate event. This is a serious issue for a growing economy such as India. What has also been noted is, community ability to adopt change are being challenged with increased temperature and environmental events, such as cyclone, drought, flood, heatwaves, fire forests, rise of oceans etc. There is an exponential rise in climate change related activities and this all is just with 0.6-0.7 degree rise in temperature. The global target of temperature rise certainly needs to be taken seriously.

India’s growth is linked to climate risks, as its well established that impact of extreme event on a region and its communities is not straight forward and depends on the sensitivity and adaptive capacity of the affected systems. Thel impact could be in terms of migration of people, loss of livelihood, food security and much beyond. Climate change can negatively impact industrial growth and disrupt the economy of the state.

At these critical times for humankinds, world is also witnessing series of general elections across the large democracies of the world, few just been with the process, while few are in between the drama to decide who should be hold the seat of authority and few will go through this in next week months.

India is among the largest democracies in the world and certainly is drawing lot of attention by internal and external players. Climate change and associated risks are becoming priorities for people. Supreme court of India recently has declared a new fundamental human right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change.

In this phase of rising temperatures across the country along with other environmental challenges being faced, as the general elections proceed, it is a reminder for political class to deliver more in terms of commitment towards actional agendas to mitigate the risk.

Climate change needs more awareness and demands more attention and for political leaders the promises being made need more authenticity and need to be backed up by an actionable agenda. ?

Post June 4, whatever may be the outcome, for India as country action towards climate change is important and need to be supported by sharp focused policies, greater cooperation with regional blocs and global forums. Over the past few years, India has significantly expanded and diversified its climate diplomacy and has emerged as an indispensable force in global climate politics.?

The key work in the dance of democracy is commitment at either side, the word holds important significance in the international climate politics, too.

?P.S.: these are my thoughts and how I view things and are not aligned to any forum or organization.