Context

Many areas are facing drought in recent years like Bundelkhand. There is a need to introduce alternatives.

Changes in rainfall and weather and it’s impact

• Bundelkhand was once blessed with over 800-900 mm rainfall annually, but over the last seven years, it has seen this halved, with rainy days reported to be down to just 24 on average in the monsoon period.

• There is hardly any greenery in many villages, making it difficult for farmers to even maintain cattle.

• Hailstorm has been destroying crop in recent years, with the arhar crop failing completely in 2015. Farmers are increasingly abandoning their lands and heading to nearby towns to find work as labourers.

Vulnerability due to Monsoon

• India is fortunate to have the monsoon, but it is also uniquely vulnerable to rising temperatures, with the country ranked 14th on the Global Climate Risk Index 2019.

• The country has over 120 million hectares suffering from some form of degradation.

• According to one estimate, they may face a 24-58% decline in household income and 12-33% rise in household poverty through exacerbated droughts.

• With rain-fed agriculture practised in over 67% of our total crop area, weather variability can lead to heavy costs, especially for coarse grains (which are mostly grown in rain-fed areas).

• A predicted 70% decline in summer rains by 2050 would devastate Indian agriculture.

• Within 80 years, our kharif season could face a significant rise in average temperatures (0.7-3.3°C) with rainfall concomitantly impacted, and potentially leading to a 22% decline in wheat yield in the rabi season, while rice yield could decline by 15%.

Solutions

• Promotion of conservation farming and dryland agriculture, with each village provided with timely rainfall forecasts, along with weather-based forewarnings regarding crop pests and epidemics in various seasons, is necessary.

• Our agricultural research programmes need to refocus on dryland research, with adoption of drought-tolerant breeds that could reduce production risks by up to 50%.

• A mandate to change planting dates, particularly for wheat, should be considered, which could reduce climate change induced damage by 60-75%,

• There needs to be an increase in insurance coverage and supply of credit.Insurance coverage should be expanded to cover all crops, while interest rates need to be subsidised, through government support and an expanded Rural Insurance Development Fund.

Loss of forest land

• India is estimated to have lost over 26 million hectares of forest land and 20 million hectares of grasslands/shrublands between 1880 and 2013.

• Insufficient coordination between the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) has led to institutional apathy towards alarming air pollution levels in the metros.

• India hosts over 172 globally threatened species, primarily in reserve forests where they have little meaningful protection against wildlife crime and forest protection, given limited budgets for anti-poaching.

Reforming IFS

• The Indian Forest Service would also benefit from restructuring, in order to make it equivalent to the police and the army, albeit in the environmental domain.

• State-of-the-art training to its personnel must be provided, and specialisation should be encouraged in wildlife, tourism and protection for new recruits.

• Deputations from other services will no longer do; this needs to remain a specialised service.

• heritage towns should be given more attention — cities like Sawai Madhopur, Bharatpur, Chikmagalur and Jabalpur, which are adjacent to national parks and sanctuaries, need to be converted into green smart cities with upgraded waste recycling processes.

• The Van Dhan Yojana, as adopted by the State government in Rajasthan, can be scaled up towards building a green mission to save our non-protected forests (outside the existing national parks and sanctuaries).

Way forward

• Prudent investments and policy reform can help make India resilient to climate change.

• Any adaptation to ongoing climate change will require that climate justice.

• This is not a blame game — this can be induced by expansion of joint research and development partnerships (like the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center), pairing India’s emerging smart cities with green cities in the West.

• India needs to decarbonise, there is no doubt about that. But the West needs to pay its bills too.