Global warming and Impact on India

General Studies Paper -3

Context: About 90% of the Himalayan Region is going to experience drought lasting over a year if global warming increases by 3 degrees Celsius, according to new research led by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the U.K.

Major Highlights of the Study

• Pollination: It found that in India pollination is reduced by half at 3-4 degrees global warming compared to a quarter reduction at 1.5 degrees.
• Biodiversity: Limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius allows half the country to act as a refuge for biodiversity, compared with 6% at 3 degrees, the researchers said.
• Agriculture: The team found more than 50% of the agricultural land in India will be exposed to drought with 3 degrees Celsius warming and is projected to be exposed to severe droughts of longer than one year over a 30-year period.
• Sea-level rise:Economic damages associated with sea-level rise are projected to increase in coastal nations, but more slowly if warming was limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, they said.
• Natural capital risk: Areas in the six countries studied, including India, are already at high natural capital risk at 1.5 degrees Celsius when effects of increasing human population are accounted
• Climate change risks:They provide additional confirmation of the rapid escalation of climate change risks with global warming found in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) 2022 report, which identifies how the risk of severe consequences increases with every additional increment of global warming.

Suggestions/Recommendations

• Adhere to Paris agreement goals:Limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would reduce the increase in exposure of agricultural land to drought by between 21% , 80% of the increased human exposure to heat stress can be avoided and also economic damages due to fluvial flooding can be reduced.
• Enhanced efforts: The researchers warned that more effort is needed to reduce global warming, as currently the policies in place globally are likely to result in 3 degrees Celsius of global warming.
• Expansion of protected area:The findings also showed that an expansion of protected area networks is necessary in order to deliver climate resilient biodiversity conservation.
• Mitigation as well as adaptation: Greater emphasis needs to be placed on both climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation to avoid large increases in risk to both human and natural systems.
• Restore ecosystems:A good way to combat the effects of climate change on natural systems and soak up carbon from the atmosphere is to restore ecosystems to their natural state. This has the additional benefit of restoring the natural capital bank in these areas.

Global warming

• It refers to the long-term heating of Earth’s climate systemobserved since the pre-industrial period (between 1850 and 1900), primarily due to human activities.
• This process releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, trapping heat in the atmosphereand causing the planet to warm.