No place for Climate Change and its implications on India's economy in India's most fiercely fought elections

“Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life,’’ said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Elena Manaenkova. Large-scale reconstructions covering part or all of the 1st millennium and 2nd millennium have shown that recent temperatures are exceptional. Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years. Though sparseness of proxy records results in considerable uncertainty for earlier periods. But best observed period is from 1850 to the present day, with coverage improving over time. An El Ni?o event is very likely under way, ramping up extreme weather already made worse by climate change and increasing the odds that 2019 will be the hottest year in recorded human history.

India is just completing most fiercely fought election after independence. No party or leader has uttered this grave situation so far. 1.35 billion population of India (of 7.7 Billion global population) is under threat due to climate change. Implications of climate change is showing impacts on India's economy.

Agriculture is important in India for the obvious reason of its centrality, given that it accounts for a large share in GDP (gross domestic product) (16%), and an even larger share in employment (49%). Perhaps it is even more important because, as the experience of the last few years illustrates, it has the potential to hold back Indian development: poor agricultural performance can lead to high inflation, rural distress, and political restiveness. Agriculture in India continues to be vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, and the looming threat of climate change has the potential to expose this vulnerability further. A small but growing global literature has focused on estimating the impact of weather and climate on economic performance. However, there are hardly any reliable data on the impacts of weather vagaries on climatically diverse country such as India.

Average annual temperatures have risen by around 0.48 degrees (between 1970 and 2018), and average monsoon rainfall has declined by 26 mm (between 1970 and 2018). We also find that there has been a steady increase in temperature extremities. The number of ‘very hot’ days as well as the number of dry days has increased, consistent with models of climate change which predict increased variability in weather. The effects of these changes of temperature on agricultural output and yields are less understood. A simple correlation at the district level, say between average temperature and average agricultural productivity, will not yield the impacts. For example, if we find that hotter districts have lower average productivity, it could be because of temperature, but it could also be because of several other factors correlated with temperature – soil quality, availability of water, and so on.

Skymet, India’s leading weather forecasting and agriculture-risk monitoring company, has released its forecast for Southwest Monsoon 2019 has predicting below normal rains to the tune of 93% (with an error margin of +/- 5%) of long period average (LPA). As a sequel to pan-India forecast, Skymet has now come up with quantitative distribution of Monsoon rainfall across the four regions of the country on May 14, 2019. Region-wise forecast comes with an error margin of +/- 8%. Thus we can expect more frequent crop failures. This will force farmers to abandon agriculture in selected regions. Water is becoming scarce. Ground water is depleting much faster rate than ever. Thus, today's farmers miseries, migrations towards cities and unemployment are mostly extreme variability mostly related to climate change.

The loan waivers or "free money" is going to cripple already fragile economy. India released its first National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) outlining existing and future policies and programs directed at climate change mitigation and adaptation. The plan outlines eight "national missions". Has there been any evaluation of its impacts ? Next elections may be too late..I feel.