Tag: climate change india

Why Climate Change Needs to Be an Election Issue in India

India is among the worst hit by climate change, however it has not featured prominently as an election issue. This has to change, say scientists.

Palakkad: With hotter climes, recurring heat waves and rapidly melting glaciers, Asia is the most disaster-prone region in the world, as per the ‘State of Climate in Asia 2023’ report released on April 23 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Floods and storms caused the highest number of reported casualties and economic losses in Asia during 2023. At the same time, the impact of heatwaves also became more severe, according to the new report.

India features prominently in the list of countries impacted by climate change in Asia: from the heatwaves that swept across the country killing more than 100 people, to the bursting of the Teesta III dam in Sikkim. The report’s main take-aways therefore make the environmental election demands put forward recently by environmentalist, social and rights groups in the light of climate change even more pertinent.

But even though climate change is directly impacting India and its people, it is still not an election issue. This needs to change, climate scientists say.

As glaciers melt, water hazards threaten millions 

With human-induced climate change, the year that passed was the warmest ever in the history of the world. For parts of Asia too, this held true, as per the ‘State of Climate in Asia 2023’ report released on April 23 by WMO.

In 2023, the mean temperature over Asia was almost a whole degree Celsius – 0.91 °C – higher than the 1991–2020 reference period, the second highest ever for the region. Several countries in Asia experienced extreme heat events that year. 

India was one of them. 

The severe heat waves that swept across north and central India in April and June last year, for instance, killed 110 people, the WMO report noted. And science predicts that it’s only going to get worse. In May last year, climate scientists part of the World Weather Attribution group found that human-induced climate change made the April heat wave across India and Bangladesh 30 times more likely. 

As per a report released by the India Meteorological Department in April last year, the duration of heatwaves in India has increased by about 2.5 days between 1961 and 2021 due to global warming. The warming in Asia is consistent with what last year’s WMO State of the Climate in Asia report found: that Asia is warming up faster than the rest of the world. The warming trend in Asia in 1991-2022 was almost double the warming trend during the 1961-1990 period, and much larger than the trends of the previous 30 years.

A rapidly warming Asia is bad news for its glaciers. During 2022-23, 20 out of 22 glaciers that scientists observed in the High Mountain Asia region showed continued negative mass changes, the latest WMO report on Asia noted. Glaciers in this region have been losing significant mass over the past 40 years “at an accelerating rate”, per the report. One of the reasons is record-breaking high temperatures and dry conditions in the Eastern Himalaya, among others.

That’s how the Teesta III dam in Sikkim burst in October last year: due to the melting of the glacier that feeds South Lhonak lake, which lies upstream of the dam. The Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) killed more than 100 people, and more than 70 people are still missing. 

“This type of disaster is increasingly observed because of climate change-induced glacier retreat and highlights the compounding and cascading risks faced by vulnerable mountain communities,” the latest WMO report noted. “Glacial lakes formed by retreating glaciers, exemplified by the reduced expanse of South Lhonak Lake, pose threats that are transboundary, spanning across regions in Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan.”

Also read: Earth’s Changing Climate

Warming oceans, erratic rainfall

Sea surface temperatures in oceans around Asia have also increased since 1982, the report highlighted. 

“The South Asian subcontinent is covered on all three sides by the fastest warming tropical ocean and the melting Himalayan glaciers on the north,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (Pune). “This has made the region a poster child of climate change. Tropical weather systems develop quickly, are fast moving and small, which makes them unpredictable. Climate change has made the weather much more uncertain and disastrous.”

As the waters of the Indian Ocean warm up, it supplies more heat and moisture for weather systems to intensify, Koll noted. 

“The number of cyclones in the Arabian Sea has increased by 50% during the last four decades, and more extremely severe cyclones like Tauktae and Amphan are projected to form in the future. The monsoon that sources its energy and moisture from the Indian Ocean has become more erratic, with short spells of heavy rains and long dry periods, causing floods and dry seasons in the same season.”

In 2023, many parts of Asia witnessed huge deficits in rainfall: from the Turan Lowland (in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) to the Hindu Kush (in Afghanistan and Pakistan), as well as the Himalayas — around the river Ganga and its floodplains, and the lower tracts of the river Brahmaputra (in both India and Bangladesh). Rains associated with the Indian summer monsoon were also “insufficient”, the WMO report noted.

On the other hand, many areas witnessed surplus rains as well – in Myanmar, Korea, Yemen, and of course, some parts of India. In June last year, cyclone Biparjoy brought excess rainfall in northwest India, but also sucked moisture-laden winds from south, central and east India, causing a rain deficit that magnified the heat wave in these regions.

The WMO report noted how intense monsoon rains in July and August led to landslides in many regions, including in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

“Triggered by heavy rainfall, the disaster compounded the effects of an earlier monsoon surge in June,” the report read. “The Indian government declared a state of emergency in the worst-affected areas, initiating rescue and relief operations. The Indian Red Cross Society (IRCS) sought support from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), highlighting the need for continued aid and intervention to address the long-term impact on communities.”

In 2023, over 80% of reported hydro-meteorological hazards in Asia were flood and storm events. Overall, the 79 reported hydro-meteorological hazard events that year caused more than 2,000 fatalities and impacted more than 9 million people in Asia, per the report. 

India’s disaster management systems lag behind

Per the WMO report, data in the Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2023 shows that only half of the world’s countries have an early warning system in place. 

In Asia, India is one of the only 21 countries to have reported the status of its early warning system on the Sendai Framework Monitoring, which is an online database for UN member states to track the country’s progress in disaster risk reduction, assess trends and patterns of hazards and also develop disaster risk reduction strategies, among others. 

But we still have a lot to improve on.

Of the four indicators that are part of the multi-hazard early warning system (disaster risk knowledge, observations and forecasting, dissemination and communication, and preparedness to respond), India fared very high (~0.9 out of 1) in preparedness to respond to disasters. In observation and forecasting India scored just below average (~0.55). Overall it had a composite score of less than 0.4, again, just below the average for Asia. The composite score measures the overall progress on availability of and access to a multi-hazard early warning system.

However India did not report a score for two of the four pillars: risk knowledge, and warning and dissemination. Sreejith O.P. of the India Meteorological Department and a lead author in the WMO report told The New Indian Express that there is a lack of last-mile connectivity to warn and disseminate early warning messages, but that the IMD was working on it.

Climate change has to become an election issue

But despite so many impacts of climate change on people, it is still not an election issue in South Asian countries, said Koll. 

“Though climate change is directly affecting a large share of the population, it is still not a decisive factor in elections – not even a point of discussion. This has to change, and we need policymakers who are aware and ready to address the challenges that South Asia is facing.”

India is no exception. 

“Despite the fact that India is facing an extreme event almost every day, and that we’re witnessing the heat upfront through the election season, affecting ministers, candidates, and citizens, climate change is not a point of discussion in the elections,” he told The Wire. “And that is disappointing since we need urgent action in terms of policies. We need representatives in the parliament who are aware of the changing climate and are ready to take up the daunting challenge of climate action and adaptation.”

According to Koll, the positive is that this time the India Meteorology Department, the National Disaster Management Agency, and the Election Commission are working together to bring down the impact of heat on the public and the election process itself, through various measures and awareness programs. The most recent include erecting shamiyanas at election booths, ensuring drinking water, fans, and other assured minimum facilities, as per the Election Commission’s advisory of March 16. On April 25, a day before Phase 2 of the election began, the Election Commission extended polling time by two hours in four constituencies in Bihar (now, from 7 am to 6 pm) — Banka, Madhepura, Khagaria and Munger — to ease polling due to heat wave conditions in these areas.

Koll said that urgent mitigation and adaptation measures — based on a rigorous assessment of threats at a very granular level — are the need of the hour, especially with many South Asian countries conducting national elections this year. 

Some of India’s major national parties have touched on tackling climate change in their manifestos. 

The Congress’s election manifesto, for instance, dedicates an entire chapter to the environment, titled “Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Management”. Among the 13 aspects listed here include some pertaining directly to tackling climate change. These include constituting an independent Environment Protection and Climate Change Authority “to establish, monitor and enforce environmental standards and to enforce the National and State Climate Change plans”; appointing a high-level committee to study the issue of landslides in hill districts and develop measures to prevent them; increase the allocation to the National Adaptation Fund; and transition from the National Action Plan on Climate Change of 2008 to a “National Climate Resilience Development Mission to ensure that all sectors of development provide protocols for action and measurable targets”. 

Many guarantees to meet

The BJP’s manifesto talks of prime minister Narendra Modi’s guarantees to make India “sustainable”. These include achieving the target of a carbon sink by enhancing the tree cover, launching a “Green Aravalli Project” (a green corridor to protect and preserve biodiversity in the region and combat desertification), increasing non-fossil fuel capacity and launching a National Atmospheric Mission called “Mausam” “to make Bharat “weather ready” and “climate smart””.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CIP(M)’s manifesto aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions via economy-wide measures, enabling a just transition from fossil fuels and promoting renewable energy, reported Carbon Brief.

But how much of these guarantees will be met? That’s an answer that will unravel only in June, when the winning alliance or party is announced, and they begin to work towards implementing their promises. For the BJP though, there’s a clear history of going back on its promises — as it did in the case of Ladakh, which now has the entire union territory in a protesting uproar.

The BJP has listed in its 2024 manifesto that it will protect Himalayan ecology (including developing a “holistic” approach to disaster mitigation and strengthening resilience in the region). However, the party — which is currently in power at the centre — has paid no heed to the climate protest that has been ongoing in Ladakh for almost two months now.

Thousands of Ladakhis, led by educationist and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk and local leaders, are taking part in hunger strikes to draw the BJP’s attention to fulfil the guarantees it promised for the last elections – of implementing the Sixth Schedule, and conferring statehood to the union territory.

Also read: Ladakh Protest: Sonam Wangchuk Ends Fast After 21 Days, Passes Baton to Others

These moves, the protestors say, will help more people from the local community have a bigger say in deciding whether to implement projects that threaten the region’s environment and fragile ecology, which are at high threat due to climate change. However, the protest is on its 51st day  and there is no sign that the BJP will relent.

Instead, the union government has tried to curtail the movement of people in Ladakh by imposing prohibitory orders under Section 144 to prevent them from undertaking a peaceful walk to the Indo-China border. The INDIA alliance, meanwhile, has promised to implement the Sixth Schedule to protect the region’s ecology, Wangchuk said in one of his recent daily updates on the protest. 

Keeping promises, clearly, mean everything for people when it comes to leaders showing concern about, and dealing with, climate change. One easy adaptation action that can help people deal with climate change is to time elections better – and not in peak summer – when the probability of heat waves are far higher. The first phase of India’s ongoing Lok Sabha elections showed a lower turnout than expected: the voter turnout was 65.5% in 102 seats, a drop of 4.4% when compared to the elections in 2019. Phase 2 of the current elections begun on April 26 and while the turnout during this phase too will tell us more, could the heat be causing a lower voter turnout?

“Yes, I think there is some impact on the elections,” Koll told The Wire. “They have extended voting hours in some booths considering this. January-February may be the best time for elections considering that the weather is less extreme across most of India.”

WMO’s State of Climate Asia report is yet again a “stark reminder that risk profiles are fast evolving and changing”, commented Abinash Mohanty, Climate Scientist and Sector Head- Climate Change and Sustainability, IPE Global, in a press release. “The need for hyper-granular risk assessment to better manage the hazards and their impacts is even more imperative.”

The efforts of countries like India to map, plan and adapt better to these climate extremities need a “renewed focus to create an enabling environment to brings these innovations from margins to mainstream that can generate jobs, support growth and foster sustainability at a hyper-local level”, Mohanty added.

India Needs to Focus on Health Initiatives That Are Climate Change Resilient

A wide array of climate-related challenges impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, exacerbating existing health inequalities.

In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly designated June 5 as World Environment Day, marking the first day of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Today is the 50th anniversary of World Environment Day, which once again reaffirms the global commitment to environmental protection. 

Although the 13th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) specifically commits to climate action, the issue of climate change, in general, is interconnected with 14 of the 17 SDGs. In the 21st century, climate change is an unquestionably important global threat to human sustainability. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reported in the last year that the planet was 1.15 ± 0.13 °C warmer than the pre-industrial era (1850-1900) average, making the last 8 years the warmest on record. The sea level has risen approximately 3.4 ± 0.3 mm per year over the past 30 years of the satellite altimeter record. The glaciers have been losing mass nearly every year since records began. Rising global temperatures have contributed to more frequent and severe extreme weather events around the world, including cold and heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and storms. These events have direct and indirect adverse impacts on sustainable development goals in general and population health in particular. 

The process of global climate change, largely driven by unsustainable production, consumption and distribution of resources, is altering our planet’s climate patterns. The atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases reflect a balance between emissions from untenable productions and consumptions which are further heavily influenced by the unequal distribution of resources “within” and “between” countries. 

Climate change and health implications

Climate change has implications for several cross-cutting spheres of human life including agricultural production, water supply, inequality in opportunity, displacement of people, threat of natural disasters, and so on. Health has a compounding impact from climate change and its multi-layer and multi-level consequences. Globally, 5 million deaths were associated with non-optimal temperatures alone per year, accounting for 9.5% of all deaths. Further, the 2015 global burden of diseases study has indicated that 16% of all deaths globally are attributed to varied pollutions and also an economic loss of $4·6 trillion per year. 

Among all sorts of pollution, air pollution is considered one of the largest environmental risk factors causing almost 7 million premature deaths each year. Burning of fossil fuels, burning of solid wastes, deforestation, industrial activities and agricultural activities are leading causes of air pollution. The WHO estimates that 9 out of 10 people worldwide are exposed to air with higher levels of pollutants. 

India is not an exception when discussing pollution and environmental change. The country has one of the world’s largest levels of PM2.5 and 21 out of the 30 most polluted cities in terms of PM2.5. The State of Global Air Report 2020, estimated approximately 1.7 million premature deaths due to household and ambient air pollution in the country in 2019. In addition, the economic loss incurred by air pollution in the country for the year 2019 accounted for 1.36% of the nation’s GDP. 

The implications of climate change on human health are profound. Direct effects such as heat waves can result in fatalities, as seen in the devastating heat waves in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Extreme weather events like cyclones, floods, and droughts have claimed thousands of lives and displaced millions, exacerbating the vulnerability of already marginalized populations. Variable precipitation patterns can lead to water scarcity, compromising hygiene and increasing the risk of waterborne diseases. Rising sea levels threaten coastal areas, contributing to flooding, saltwater intrusion, and the displacement of populations. Retreating glaciers in the Himalayas poses risks to freshwater availability, food security, and livelihoods. These are a few of the many health impacts associated with climate change. Climate-induced health costs are huge in India. Mortality attributable to hot and cold ambient temperatures in India alone is 6.3% of all deaths or around 8 lakhs per year.  

Also Read: Climate Change Made the April 2023 Heat Wave Across India 30 Times More Likely

Climate change and the vulnerable

Climate change is a global crisis that affects everyone, but its consequences are particularly devastating for the poor and vulnerable populations. These marginalised communities bear the brunt of climate change impacts due to their limited resources, socioeconomic disadvantages, and geographical location. The poor often lack access to essential services, including clean water, sanitation, healthcare, and education, which exacerbates their vulnerability to climate-related hazards. The poor and vulnerable are disproportionately affected by extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, and floods. Their precarious living conditions, often in informal settlements or low-lying coastal areas, make them highly susceptible to displacement, property damage, and loss of livelihoods. Additionally, these communities rely heavily on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, which are highly susceptible to changing weather patterns. Crop failures, loss of livestock, and reduced yields lead to food insecurity, malnutrition, and economic instability, trapping them in a vicious cycle of poverty. 

A farmer with his flattened wheat crop in Punjab’s Ferozepur district. Photo: Special arrangemen

India, with its vast number of people living below the poverty line and across diverse geographical regions, is particularly vulnerable to the health effects of climate change. The country’s dependence on climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture and fisheries, combined with a large rural population, magnifies the risks. Air pollution in the country largely influences agricultural production. Research conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), informs that exposure to air pollution reduces the yield of major food crops in India. The projected rise in temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, and the melting of Himalayan glaciers all pose significant challenges to public health. It is imperative that India takes proactive measures to mitigate and adapt to these challenges and build a climate change-resilient healthcare system in India.

Way forward for India 

The urgent need for climate change resilient health initiatives in India arises from the escalating threats posed by climate change to public health. However, there is little progress towards developing the climate change or disaster-resilient healthcare system in India which was quite evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, historical and political commitments towards research funding and actions for building a sustainable climate-resilient healthcare system in India are not adequate.

A wide array of climate-related challenges impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, exacerbating existing health inequalities. To effectively address these challenges, there is a pressing need to develop and implement climate change resilient health initiatives and technological innovations. Such initiatives should focus on strengthening healthcare infrastructure, improving disease surveillance systems, enhancing early warning systems for extreme weather events, promoting research on climate-health linkages, and building capacity among healthcare professionals to tackle climate-related health risks. By prioritising climate resilience in the health sector, India can mitigate the adverse health impacts of climate change, protect the well-being of its citizens, and build a sustainable and robust healthcare system capable of adapting to the changing climate conditions.

Md Juel Rana is Assistant Professor at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh; Srinivas Goli is Associate Professor and Amrutha G.S. is a Project Officer at the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra. 

Opinions expressed in the article are personal and, in any form, do not reflect the views of their affiliated institutions.

Rhetoric Aside, India Must Find Answers to These Seven Critical Questions on Green Hydrogen

There’s so much fanfare around green hydrogen in the ruling establishment and among clean energy hawks, but what is being missed is the problems associated with hydrogen being treated as an alternative to fossil fuels and the viability of the process involved in obtaining green hydrogen.

Given the climate emergency our planet is facing, with accelerating global heating and devastating bio-diversity loss, any initiative by a government which proclaims its aim as ‘greening the economy’ deserves critical examination for both its importance and limitations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement on India’s 75th Independence Day of the government’s plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission is one such initiative by an emerging economic power in the global economy. The mission was approved by Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Modi, on January 4 this year while earmarking Rs 19,744 crore as an initial investment.

Also read: Union Cabinet Clears National Green Hydrogen Mission

Its stated purpose is to make India a production and export hub of green hydrogen. This stated aim is also believed to be part of India’s aim to reduce its reliance on oil from Russia and the Middle East – the need for which has become increasingly important after the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

That hydrogen is a problematic green energy resource as an alternative to fossil fuels is not generally recognised. This obfuscation characterises the Indian government’s ‘green’ hydrogen mission too.

Different types of hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but for commercial use on the earth, it is produced either from fossil gas, usually by steam reformation, or by the electrolysis of water. Electrolysis technology splits hydrogen from oxygen in the water.

More than 98% of hydrogen used commercially is “grey” – produced from gas. Left-over carbon is joined with oxygen and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Global hydrogen production’s carbon footprint is about four-fifths the size of the aviation sector’s.

Gas companies claim they can produce “blue” hydrogen, without most of these emissions, by capturing and storing the carbon. But carbon capture and storage technology experimented with for about 40 years has never worked at a large scale.

“Green” hydrogen, produced by electrolysing water, is emissions-free but very energy-intensive. Wind and solar capacity one-and-a-half times the world’s current total would be needed to substitute the world economy’s “grey” hydrogen with “green”.

India’s plan

The government says it intends to focus on “green” hydrogen – a good approach in principle. However, as India decarbonises its economy, hydrogen may be needed, particularly to make fertilisers for agriculture, and for zero-carbon steel production.

But, we must face the fact that large amounts of solar and wind power would be needed, while India also needs those energy sources to reduce its dependence on coal. The burden on land and water resources also needs to be considered.

The viability of India’s Green Hydrogen Mission has also come into question because Adani’s business participation was a key driver. Adani announced a $50 billion hydrogen development project in partnership with TotalEnergies, the French oil and gas company.

TotalEnergies had hoped to take a 25% stake in an Adani subsidiary to focus on hydrogen. But in the wake of the crisis engulfing Adani’s business lately, TotalEnergies has stopped the project going forward.

Questions that need answering

We believe that questions need answering about the National Hydrogen Mission – about how it fits into India’s energy and climate policy more broadly; about the resources, it will use; and about what hydrogen will be used for in India.

Question 1: Will the vital task of cutting coal consumption be undermined, by focusing renewable electricity capacities on hydrogen?

The government proposes to produce 5 million tonnes/year of “green” hydrogen by 2030 – which would need about 120-125 gigawatts (GW) of renewable electricity generation capacity. That would mean more than doubling the amount of electricity generated in India from solar panels and wind farms – a herculean task.

Solar panels representational image. Photo: rawpixel.com/public domain/CC0 1.0.

It is critical to use these valuable resources wisely: each megawatt-hour used to make hydrogen will not be available for other purposes.

The number of solar panels and wind farms needed could, alternatively, supply as much electricity to the grid as 30-40 large (1.5 GW) coal-fired power stations. Such stations could then be retired. India could start cutting coal output, coal imports, and coal burning even before 2030. These would be valuable contributions to tackling dangerous global warming and air pollution.

There is no doubt that rapid expansion of renewable electricity generation is necessary. But a public policy discussion is needed about the priorities for its use. It should not be committed in advance to hydrogen.

Question 2: Will hydrogen producers grab wind and solar electricity supplies that are more urgently needed for the electricity grid?

An authoritative report by the Energy and Resources Institute and Energy Transitions Commission explained: “Hydrogen production from renewables is an energy-intensive process, and direct electrification should always be preferred wherever possible.”

That is because, if you use 10 units of energy (as electricity) to make hydrogen, the hydrogen you produce only contains 7 units of energy. If you compress it and transport it, you use up roughly another 3 units. So, it is always more energy-efficient to use electricity than to turn it into hydrogen.

Nevertheless, the government – while still working out details of the National Hydrogen Mission – has already offered hydrogen producers preferential terms, including a waiver of inter-state transmission charges, on which to buy electricity.

In other words, hydrogen production is being subsidised.

Companies producing solar power welcome the prospect of supplying direct to industrial customers with assured payment, rather than dealing with “uncertain payment from the cash-strapped distribution utilities”, the energy market researcher Sanjeev Ahluwia has pointed out.

But the answer to that is not to create a privileged carve-out for hydrogen producers. Rather, further work needs to be done on the electricity sector’s problems, including debts, carbon-wasteful inefficiency, and patchy access.

Question 3: Why are ministries and companies seeking to create new sources of hydrogen demand, when current demand will outstrip supply for the foreseeable future?

A report on hydrogen by NITI Aayog, the government’s own think tank, claims that “in the near term, it’s crucial to focus on domestic demand creation efforts, cost reduction pathways and early pilots”.

But what about India’s existing hydrogen consumption? It is nearly 6 million tonnes/year, more than half of which is used for fertiliser manufacture, and almost all the rest in oil refineries.

This is all “grey” hydrogen, made from gas or coal, using a chemical process called steam reformation. It is a global warming nightmare: for each tonne of hydrogen produced, between 10 and 18 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. Globally, “grey” hydrogen production emits nearly as much greenhouse gas as the aviation industry – more than Indonesia and the UK combined.

NITI Aayog’s report suggests increasing demand for green hydrogen, for example, by creating industrial hubs where it could be used – and even by exporting hydrogen. But when it comes to using “green” hydrogen to wind down “grey” hydrogen production, the report points to very optimistic price forecasts, that may never be realised.

The government says that, in addition to domestic uses, its Hydrogen Mission will lead to the “creation of export opportunities for green hydrogen and its derivatives”. Again, the benefits of exporting hydrogen need to be weighed against the costs in energy, greenhouse gas emissions and other resources.

Question 4: Has “green” hydrogen production’s heavy burden on resources – land and water, in particular – been considered?

To produce a kilogram of “green” hydrogen by electrolysis, you need nine litres of water, as well as electricity. Researchers at the Florence School of Regulation estimate that to implement the National Hydrogen Mission, India would need 50 billion litres of demineralised water supply. “As several parts of India are already severely water-stressed, solutions need to be found to cater to this additional water demand”, they point out.

Land is another constraint on large-scale hydrogen production. Analysts at the Energy and Resources Institute caution that shortage of unused land will frustrate solar and wind capacity construction: “the binding constraint may not be the absolute availability of zero-carbon electricity, but rather the rate at which it can be built, given the challenges of land acquisition and environment where land is a scarce resource”.

From that, it follows – once again – that zero-carbon electricity must be deployed “in the most efficient way possible”. And – once again – “direct electrification of end-uses should be favoured wherever possible, in order to reduce the substantial conversion losses from the production of hydrogen for end-use consumption”.

Representative image. Photo: Angelo DeSantis/CC BY 2.0

Before talking about relatively inefficient uses of hydrogen, for example, fuel cells for cars or for aviation, or to heat homes, these constraints need to be addressed.

Question 5: What about technological resources – electrolysers, specifically? Can the challenge be met as easily as is claimed?

The manufacture of electrolysers is a key bottleneck for producing “green” hydrogen. All the world’s manufacturers together can now turn out 8 GW of electrolysers each year. Four-fifths of this capacity is in China and Europe, and India surely needs to develop its own.

Also read: Challenges Aplenty in India’s Pursuit of Becoming Global Hub for Green Hydrogen

But to meet its target of producing 5 million tonnes/year of hydrogen, researchers at the Florence School of Regulation say that India could need 12 years’ worth of current world supply. “India has launched projects to manufacture electrolysers, but the actual numbers as of today are negligible.” Access to the minerals required could be another constraint.

The aim of developing a robust domestic electrolyser manufacturing industry is surely a good one. “Green” hydrogen will be needed for fertiliser manufacture – even making the most optimistic assumptions about India turning away from industrial farming methods. It can be used for making zero-carbon steel.

But it is important to take an honest look at the constraints on the shift away from “grey” hydrogen and fossil fuel dependence, and not to sugar-coat difficulties.

Question 6: Will the National Hydrogen Mission reduce India’s dependence on imported natural gas, as the government claims?

The government claims that, by 2030, its Hydrogen Mission will save 1 lakh crore rupees ($15 billion) of fossil fuel imports. It does not give any details about how that saving will be achieved.

If “green” hydrogen is used to substitute for current “grey” hydrogen output, that would reduce coal and gas demand – but the government also plans to raise gas use, and therefore gas imports, substantially (from 6% of the energy mix in 2019, to 15% in 2030).

Furthermore, India is currently importing more than 160 million tonnes of coal annually.

Energy efficiency measures, and continued electricity sector reform, could sharply reduce gas and coal use while improving the quality of access. This is the best way to reduce import dependence. Will institutional attention focused on hydrogen detract from these tasks?

Question 7: Will the companies that have announced investments in “green” hydrogen address social justice and climate policy aims?

The government’s plans are predicated on the assumption that the cost of producing “green” hydrogen can be cut from $3-8 per kilo now, to $1-2 in 2030. There is no certain way of doing this – and, if one is not found, the companies who have invested in the process will be reluctant to go further. After all, their business is to make money.

In addition to Adani, Indian Oil has announced its intention of becoming a major player. But there are big question marks as to whether its use of hydrogen will be “green”: over the next decade, the company says that only half its hydrogen will be from electrolysis; the remainder will presumably be “grey” or “blue”. This, combined with the fact that the hydrogen will be used for refining oil, means that the life-cycle emissions reductions are likely to be negligible.

Government funding is being used to kick-start other projects, such as a proposed $575 million “hydrogen hub” at Kochi, in Kerala. For hydrogen to be used in a way that meets climate and development goals, these questions need answering. Otherwise, it could turn into an expensive greenwash for energy companies, that in turn postpones the action that is really needed to move away from fossil fuels.

Pritam Singh is Professor Emeritus in Economics at Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford, UK. Simon Pirani is an Honorary Professor at the University of Durham, and the author of Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto Press, 2018).

Watch | Ground Report: Climate Change and Unkept Promises Are Crushing India’s Farmers

The Wire’s Zeeshan Kaskar travelled to Kharkhoda in Sonipat district of Haryana to speak to farmers who are facing issues on many fronts.

After a drop in production of wheat due to an unprecedented heat wave in March 2022, farmers are bracing themselves for a season of bad paddy produce. Rice production has been impacted by the rains which occurred in September. As per India Meteorological Department, September saw excess rainfall of 82% in Haryana, a phenomenon that last occurred in 1945. Similarly, Punjab also received 30% more rain for the first time since 1988.

The Wire‘s Zeeshan Kaskar travelled to Kharkhoda in Sonipat district of Haryana to find out the ground reality. The farmers are facing issues on many fronts. Apart from the change in climate affecting the crops, issues related to non-fulfilment of subsidies, non-procurement of certain crops, lack of support from insurance agencies and even suicides came to the fore. The farmer is in distress and they have no one to turn to.

“Climate change is real and it is negatively affecting farmers,” says Abhimanyu Kohar of Kharkhoda. An engineer who now works for the farmers’ group Bharatiya Kisan Naujawan Union, Kohar says farmers are already feeling the negative effects of climate change and

Watch the video for full details.

Watch | India’s Changing Rainfall Patterns Could Be Due to Climate Change

What’s causing extreme rainfall in parts of India and deficit in others?

More and more climate scientists are saying that the recent extreme rainfall is a direct fallout of global warming and climate change. A German climate research institute has found that with every degree’s rise in temperature, monsoon rainfall over India will likely increase by 5%.

While India’s southern peninsula has received extreme rainfall over the last 20 days or so, the northeast region recorded a 14% deficit in the same period – i.e. between July 1 and July 23.

This is unusual too because India’s northeast is widely known for heavy rain. Watch the full video to understand what’s causing extreme rainfall in parts of India and how growing evidence of changing rainfall patterns in the northeast is pointing to climate change.

What Does the Path for India’s Post-Pandemic Economy Look Like?

The bureaucratic tinkering with revenues and expenditures in the weeks ahead will be of little consequence. A larger perspective must be taken.

The world is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. COVID-19 vaccines are on the way and, hopefully, they will help stop the pandemic. 

However, India’s economy has taken a massive hit. Official estimates indicate a sharp contraction in India’s economic activity in 2020. A return to positive growth is expected this year. However, if experience from previous shocks is any indication, there will be lasting damage. We are in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime disruption to all facets of life – social, political and economic. 

But the discourse in policy spheres is still mostly business-as-usual. How can it be that a once-in-a-lifetime disruption is debated as if tomorrow is the pre-ordained extension of yesterday? India has an opportunity to pause and reflect on its current trajectory. Instead of 2021, can the discussion be about 2050 and beyond? We can then work backwards to see what we must do and, equally important, what we must not do. 

Before we get to 2050, let’s talk about the discourse these days. Government officials routinely talk about India’s V-shaped economic recovery. India’s quarterly GDP growth plummeted by 23.9% in the April-June quarter relative to the previous quarter. In the following quarter, growth shot up by 21.9% relative to the previous (horrible) quarter. On a chart, it looks like a ‘V’, first going down sharply and then rising up sharply. Sadly, that is not the whole story. It is much less rosy than you think but more on that later. 

Policymakers and wonks are also debating the size of the fiscal deficit, banking sector challenges, elevated inflation, lower employment, weak investment growth, etc. These are all important issues. However, we debate these core economic issues every year. But we don’t, thankfully, have a COVID-19 pandemic every year.

We usually do not have a catastrophe that costs the global economy $10 trillion, which the Economist admits is an understatement. Harvard University economists estimate that the United States alone will lose $16 trillion due to the pandemic. That is if it ends by fall 2021. 

It is not standard to deal with an event that creates dozens of new billionaires and puts an additional trillion dollars in the hands of less than a thousand people even as hundreds of millions join the ranks of the global poor. Seven Indian billionaires added $64 billion to their wealth during the pandemic. Meanwhile, when the Indian government announced another round of stimulus in November, economists noted that only about $40 billion was new spending.

A volunteer distributes food to migrant workers travelling home at a Kanyakumari railway station. Photo: PTI

The rest was mostly in the form of loans. It is difficult to wrap your head around the fact that seven Indians added more to their wealth than the Indian government could muster for 1.3 billion people.

COVID-19 will leave deep scars on most economies. An analysis of economic vulnerabilities by Oxford Economics, a global forecasting consultancy, finds that long-term economic scarring in India could be among the deepest in the world. Limited fiscal support for the recovery, structural rigidities, imbalances in the financial sector and other reasons will cause the economy to take longer to reach its pre-pandemic trajectory.

This is not unusual. A decade after the Great Recession (2007-09), the US economy was “significantly smaller” than it should have been based on its pre-crisis growth trend. Economists at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have extensively studied the impact of recessions on economic output. They assert that “all types of recessions, on average, lead to permanent output losses.” But not all countries are the same and they don’t all have the resources to weather recessions effectively.

Oxford Economics estimates that by 2025, “the long-term economic damage from the pandemic will be twice as severe in emerging markets compared with wealthy countries.” India faces a long-term struggle. Make no mistake about it.

How do we meet this moment of epic proportions? We don’t do it by repeating annual homilies to the “green shoots” of the economy or “big bang” budgets. We most certainly don’t do it by bureaucratic tinkering with revenues and expenditures. That is not what India needs.

Watch: Worse Than War, Current Crisis Is Indian Economy’s Greatest Crisis

Three challenges

India must look far ahead and then work backwards to solve the biggest challenges of the 21st century. I list three of them as food for thought.

Climate change poses a grave threat to India on multiple dimensions – pollution, extreme heat, floods, droughts, and a decline in living standards for nearly half the country. In 2018 (the sixth warmest year on record), it was reported that in the 15 years preceding 2018, India recorded 11 of its 15 warmest years.

A 2019 study warned that coastal cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata could be submerged by 2050. Dealing aggressively with climate change is critical for the survival and well-being of India’s future generations. Are the best minds in India working to turn the threat of climate change into an opportunity of a lifetime? 

A man uses a board to float through a flooded street to reach to a market place in Chennai, December 5, 2015. Photo: Reuters/Anindito Mukherjee

Many are still despondent about India’s lost opportunity in labour-intensive manufacturing. Meanwhile, the Fourth Industrial Revolution opportunity is also slipping away. Other countries have taken a big lead in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and 3D printing. Many of these new technologies link up nicely with climate change targets. For instance, China, the US and Europe are dominating the electric vehicle market.

Meanwhile, India’s manufacturing value added as a share of GDP was only 13.6% in 2019, the lowest since 1968. Is there a coherent vision for India’s place in modern manufacturing or will 2050 be spent mourning the loss of one more opportunity?

 The third is the human capital challenge. Can India effectively compete with more advanced nations if malnutrition is increasing in the country? Can the current systems of health and education produce workers who can make India a leader in modern manufacturing? In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Mitra’, a robot, in the presence of Ivanka Trump. Was that launch an indicator of India’s progress on human development indicators? No, it wasn’t. India is way down on the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Meanwhile, we know that China is the world leader in building robots… and ships, high-speed trains, chemical fibres, machine tools, computers, cellphones, etc. China didn’t get there without improved health and education. India is going nowhere without improved health and education.

These are just three of the many themes that require transformational thinking and action. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. We can’t treat it as if we can just go back to normal after the pandemic is over. Besides, it isn’t as if the old normal was working very well for us. The old economy was becoming more unjust, it was losing steam, and it left India unprepared for the future. There can be no going back to that. It is time to take a radically different path. 

Salman Soz is the Deputy Chairman of All India Professionals’ Congress. Simar Singh is a Development Economics Research Assistant.

Delhi Police ‘Briefly Detains’ 2 Minor Climate Activists for Protesting Against Air Pollution

Nine-year-old climate activist Licypriya Kangujam and 12-year-old Aarav Seth were peacefully demonstrating near Parliament House.

New Delhi: Nine-year-old climate activist Licypriya Kangujam and 12-year-old Aarav Seth were detained by Delhi Police outside Parliament House for protesting against air pollution in Delhi.

According to Kangujam’s Twitter account, which is managed by her guardians, the police detained them for 40 minutes and also called in Central Industrial Security Force personnel to take the protesters.

Kangujam was also taken to an unspecified location in a police vehicle.“They took her somewhere but we couldn’t trace her,” said a tweet from her handle.

Also read: Five Environmental Disasters That We Should Make Sure Children Know About

Kangujam said that the police initially tried to take them to the Parliament Street Police Station, but later released them at Jantar Mantar.

Kangujam said that the police gave her a warning and told her that she would be arrested the next time if she held demonstrations there and said, “I appreciate all the police personals for treating me like as a daughter except 2-3 who warned me not to protest again at the same place.”[sic]

“My only mistake was I protested in the most highly restricted security zone of India,” Kangujam said.

Calling it “illegal detention“, Kangujam said, “Under what law, how a nine years old kid can be arrested or detained?”.

“But I will go & protest again. This is my right to raise the voice to give us clean air to breathe. If I don’t tell to our leaders then to whom I should tell? My demand is for them too,” Kangujam added in a tweet.

The national capital’s air quality, which usually declines in the winter, hit an eight-month low on Thursday with stubble burning accounting for only 6% of the city’s PM2.5 concentration, according to government agencies.

Delhi recorded a 24-hour average air quality index (AQI) of 312. The last time the air quality hit such a poor level was in February with an AQI 320. The 24-hour average AQI was 276 on Wednesday, which falls in the ‘poor’ category. It was 300 on Tuesday, 261 on Monday, 216 on Sunday and 221 on Saturday.

The Supreme Court had last year in November, pulled up the Centre up for failing to control the air quality in Delhi, saying that “the whole of north India, NCR is suffering from the issue of air pollution.” The apex court also lashed out at authorities for alleged inaction. “Can you permit people to die like this due to pollution? Can you permit the country to go back by 100 years?” asked a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra.

World Sees ‘Largest Environmental Protest in History’ for Climate Action

The protests, which are being called ‘Fridays for future’, saw adults being led by school children.

New Delhi: With world leaders due to meet in New York and table their plans of action for minimising climate change, a global strike led by the youth is taking place across the world. The protests, which include 5,200 events in 156 countries are led by a range of organisations like 350.org, Fridays for future, Extinction rebellion and Earth Day Network.

The protests began in the east, which rises before the rest of the world. In Australia, over three lakh people took to the streets across cities. This has been described as Australia’s largest mobilisation since the protests in 2003 against the Iraq war.

Pacific island nations like the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu also participated in the strike. A recent leaked UN report has once again driven home the threat that small islands face due to rising sea levels as a result of human-induced climate change. According to the leaked report, by 2050 small islands and low-lying nations are going to suffer due to ‘extreme sea-level events’ every year.

The protests, which are being called ‘Fridays for future’, for the first time included adults being led by school children. The movement took off after Greta Thunberg, the then 15-year-old Swedish girl, went on a strike all by herself every Friday outside the Swedish parliament in August last year.

Also read: ‘We Are Striking to Disrupt the System’: In Conversation with Climate Activist Greta Thunberg

Subsequently, school students across the world followed her lead and began protests which involved skipping school and protesting at a public place in their city or town (it largely remains an urban phenomenon). The Friday protests reached a crescendo in March when an estimated 1.4 million students in 123 countries missed school to protest and demand that governments across the world take stronger measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Photo: The Wire

Since she took the lead last year, Thunberg has become the face and energy behind the movement. “Greta has become almost a synecdoche for the global climate movement: its mascot, its theorist, its revolutionary, and a representative “victim” of generational malice,” the journalist David Wallace-Wells wrote in a recent piece about her in the Intelligencer.

She has spoken at events around the world populated by world leaders, the wealthy and the wise. In December last year, she addressed the UN Climate Conference (COP 24) in Katowice, Poland, urging world leaders present to act and accusing them of ‘stealing their kids’ future’. Subsequently, she spoke at the World Economic Forum at Davos, addressed the European Economic Conference and the US Congress, where she asked the members not to listen to her but to scientists and submitted a copy of the UN SR 15 report as her testimony.

The report was released in October last year and has been referred to as the ‘doomsday’ report. It has warned of dire consequences even if the commitments made by nations under the Paris agreement are met. Under the 2015 agreement, 195 nations agreed to cut emissions in order to restrict global temperature rise ‘well below’ two degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels and ‘pursue efforts’ to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius.

The SR 15 report warned that the 2-degree target would be insufficient to avert climate catastrophe. It said that the world is already at one degree of warming and the climate impacts would be exponentially more between a 1.5 degree warmer world as compared to a two-degree warmer world. Several hundred million more people would be vulnerable to ‘climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty’ and ten million more people would face permanent inundation due to the rise in sea-level.

The report also said that the pace at which emissions are required to be cut, in order to avert large scale climate change impacts, need ‘unprecedented changes’. It warned that the window to act in order to keep the world below a temperature rise of 1.5 degree Celsius above pre industrial levels is fast closing. According to the report, the world has until 2030 to cut emissions by 45%, instead of the 20% that the 2 degree pathway requires.

Photo: The Wire

The SR 15 report and the rise of the school students’ movement has coincided to bring forth an unprecedented focus on the climate crisis that the world is heading towards. The movement has gathered strength and has led to some tangible changes.

In February this year, the European Commission committed to spending 25% of its budget on climate change mitigation between 2021 and 2027. Democratic candidature hopefuls for the US Presidential elections of 2020 are debating policies for climate change mitigation. In June, the UK vowed to bring its greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050.

Today’s protest was organised with a firm eye on the UN Climate Action Summit scheduled to take place next week in New York. The UN secretary-general has called upon world leaders to focus on action. “Don’t bring a speech—bring a plan,” he said earlier this week.

Also read: Climate Change Poses Serious Threats to India’s Food Security

World leaders are expected to take to the podium and improve upon the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which they had announced after the Paris agreement and which detail each nation’s efforts to curb national emissions.

According to estimates, New York alone would see 1.1 million school students hit the streets. The organisers are upbeat that by the end of Friday, in all parts of the world, the number of protestors would be far greater than the number who had joined in March. The mobilisation is being called by some the ‘largest environmental protest in history’.

The protest was also observed in 70 cities and towns across India including tier 2 and 3 cities like Indore, Tehri, Ludhiana and Meerut apart from the larger metropolitan centres of Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi.

Photo: The Wire

In Delhi, over a hundred school children aided by their parents and several others gathered outside the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Housing demanding action against emissions emanating from cities in particular. With Delhi being one of the most polluted cities in the world, air pollution was a significant focus for the protestors who demanded that more trees be planted, polluting vehicles be banned and polluting industries be closed.

Also read: Interview | ‘We’re Finally Talking About Solutions on the Scale of the Crisis We Face’: Naomi Klein

The protestors will continue through the week and the protestors will pick up different environmental issues – including felling of trees, interlinking of rivers, use of plastic – every day. The week of protest will culminate on September 27 when the protestors will march to the Prime Minister’s office to urge him to declare a ‘climate emergency’.

“And we will be back on the streets every Friday,” said 17-year-old Geetika Sharma in Central Delhi holding a banner which read, ‘Satyagraha for future generations.’ “If 16-year-old Greta can do it, so can we,” she said.

Climate Change-Induced Factors Threaten India’s Coal-Based Energy Sector: Report

Fierce competition from renewable energy sources like wind, solar and thermal power are also contributing to stress in the coal sector.

New Delhi: India’s coal-fired power plants, which generate about 70% of the country’s electricity, are facing major risks due to over-capacity, low-cost renewables and water shortages, a new report has concluded.

Climate change has exacerbated impacts as increasingly ambitious targets by the government have brought down the price of renewable energy alternatives and water shortages are growing due to erratic monsoons and an increase in extreme rainfall.

“It is our conclusion that these issues, coupled with rising concern over climate change and increasingly ambitious government commitments to address it, will be an insurmountable hurdle for India’s coal sector,” the report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said.

According to the report, given the construction boom early on in the 2010s, the coal sector now has significant overcapacity. Coal-fired power capacity in India is now 20% higher than the level of peak demand and 50 gigawatts above average demand levels.

Increased water stress in the country is another factor that is providing significant headwinds to the coal energy sector. Coal-fired power plants require large amounts of water for cooling purposes.

Rapidly depleting levels of ground water, a decline in monsoon rain and increased instances of extreme rainfall have led to a shortage of water across the country. These issues are likely to worsen due to climate change and as a result, IEEFA concludes, the coal fired power sector could face shortages.

Fierce competition from renewable energy sources – wind, solar and thermal power – are also contributing to stress in the coal sector, IEEFA has concluded. Solar and wind auction prices in India, at Rs 3.29 per kilowatt-hour, are now lower than the cost of coal-fired electricity which averaged at Rs 3.49 per kilowatt-hour during 2018-19.

Also read: Environmental Exemptions Now Allow for Piecemeal Expansions of Coal Mines

“The economics already favour renewables, and we expect the cost disparity between renewables and coal to widen as time goes on,” said David Schlissel director of resource planning at IEEFA.

However, with renewables the challenge of grid integration and the lack of consistent supply – wind energy can only be generated when wind blows and solar energy can only be generated when the sun shines – remain impediments in the way of a complete phasing out of coal.

With power demand certain to increase with growing incomes and increased penetration, coal will continue to play a key role in India’s energy generation mix.

The government has recently approved 100% foreign direct investment (FDI) in the coal sector. But, this is unlikely to have many takers in the global environment which is rapidly moving away from coal, Tim Buckley, director of Energy Finance Studies with IEEFA told The Wire.

“Foreign capital markets are moving against thermal coal so it’s going to be very difficult to find too many foreign investors looking to invest in the Indian coal market,” Buckley said.

Hailstorms at 43° C Wreck Farming in Latur

Villagers in Maharashtra’s Latur district are baffled by the heavy and intense hailstorms in summer that have hit them this past decade.

His roof didn’t quite come down on him, but it did chase Gunwant around his farm. That image remains vividly etched in his mind. “The tin-roof of the shed on the edge of our land was torn off and came flying towards me,” he recalls. “I hid under a pile of hay and managed to come out injury-free.”

It isn’t every day you get chased by a roof. The one Gunwant Hulsulkar was running from in Ambulga village had been ripped off by deadly winds accompanying a hailstorm there this April.

Emerging from under the hay-pile, Gunwant, 36, could barely recognise his own farm in Nilanga taluka. “It couldn’t have lasted more than 18-20 minutes. But the trees had fallen off, dead birds were scattered around, and our livestock was badly injured,” he says, pointing to the damage-marks left by the hailstorm on the trees.

“There is a hailstorm or unseasonal rain every 16-18 months,” says his mother Dhondabai, 60, sitting on the steps outside her two-room stone and mortar house in Ambulga. In 2001, her family shifted from cultivating pulses (urad and moong) to nurturing mango and guava orchards across their 11 acres. “We need to look after the trees through the year, but an extreme weather event of just a few minutes destroys our entire investment.”

It wasn’t a one-off phenomenon that occurred this year. Extreme weather episodes, including torrential rainfall and even hailstorms, have showed up in this part of Maharashtra’s Latur district for over a decade now. Uddhav Biradar’s small one-acre mango orchard, also in Ambulga, collapsed in a 2014 hailstorm. “I had 10-15 trees. They died with that storm. I made no effort to revive them,” he says.

“The hailstorms continue,” 37-year-old Biradar adds. “It was painful to see the trees after the storm of 2014. You plant them, take care of them, and then they are blown away in minutes. I do not think I could go through all this again.”

Gunwant Hulsulkar. Photo: Parth M.N./People’s Archive of Rural India

Hailstorms? In Latur district of the Marathwada region? This is a place where, for well over half the year, the mercury is at or above 32° C. The latest hailstorm struck in the first week of April this year when temperatures ranged between 41-43° C.

But as almost every farmer here will tell you in exasperation, they can no longer figure out the behaviour of the taapman, havaman and vatavaran (temperature, weather and climate).

Also Read: Indian Farmers Are Building Food Forests to Fight Climate Change, Agrarian Crisis

What they do comprehend is that the number of rainy days annually has dropped, while the count of hotter days has risen. In 1960, the year Dhondabai was born, Latur could expect at least 147 days annually that would see temperatures of 32° C or above, as data from an app on climate change and global warming posted by the New York Times shows. This year, that would be 188 days. When Dhondabai turns 80, there could be 211 of these very hot days.

The latest hailstorm struck in April this year when temperatures ranged between 41 and 43 degrees. Photo: Nishant Bhadreshwar/ People’s Archive of Rural India

“It’s hard to believe we are approaching the end of July,” Subash Shinde told me when I visited his 15-acre farm in Ambulga last month. The farm looks barren, the soil is brown and bears not a hint of green buds. Shinde, 63, takes out a handkerchief from his white kurta and soaks off the sweat from his forehead. “I usually sow soybean by mid-June. This time around, I might stay away from the kharif season altogether.”

Farmers like Shinde, in this 150-kilometre stretch linking southern Latur to Hyderabad in Telangana, mainly cultivate soybean. Till around 1998, Shinde says, jowar, urad and moong were the primary kharif crops here. “Those required consistent rainfall. We needed a timely monsoon for a decent harvest.”

Shinde and most others here shifted to soybean around the year 2000 because, he says, “it is a flexible crop. If the weather patterns change a bit, it does not collapse. It was attractive in the international market as well. We ended up saving money at the end of the season. Plus, the post-harvest leftovers of soybean could serve as animal fodder. But over the past 10-15 years, even soybean has not been able to deal with the erratic monsoons.”

Wrecked safflower (top left; Photo: Narayan Pawale/People’s Archive of Rural India); a field after the hailstorm (top right; Photo: Nishant Bhadreshwar/People’s Archive of Rural India); destroyed watermelon (bottom left; Photo: Nishant Bhadreshwar/People’s Archive of Rural India); wilting jowar (bottom right; Photo: Manoj Aakhade/People’s Archive of Rural India)

And this year, “those who have sown their crops are now regretting it,” says G. Sreekanth, collector, Latur district. “Because the initial showers have been followed by a dry spell.”  There has been only 64% sowing (all crops) across the district. In Nilanga taluka, 66%. Obviously, soybean, which accounts for over 50% of the total cropped area in the district, has taken a big hit.

Latur is in the agricultural region of Marathwada and has a normal annual average rainfall of 700 mm. The monsoon arrived on June 25 this year and has been erratic since. At the end of July, Sreekanth told me that there had been a 47% shortfall below the normal rainfall for that period.

Also Read: Alternative Grains Can Help India Allay Impact of Global Heating on Agriculture

In the early 2000s, says Subash Shinde, an acre of soybean yielded 10-12 quintals on an investment of around Rs 4,000. Nearly two decades later, the price of soybean may have doubled from Rs 1,500 to Rs 3,000 a quintal, but, he says, cultivation costs have tripled and per acre output has halved.

The data of the State Agricultural Marketing Board support Shinde’s observations. In 2010-11, soybean acreage was 1.94 lakh hectares, and production was 4.31 lakh tonnes, says the Board’s website. In 2016, soybean covered 3.67 lakh hectares, but production was just 3.08 lakh tonnes. An 89% increase in acreage, but a 28.5% fall in production.

Madhukar Hulsulkar, 63, Dhondabai’s husband, points to another feature of the present decade. “Since 2012, our use of pesticides has increased a lot. Just this year, we have had to spray 5-7 times,” he says.

Dhondabai chips in with more insights on the changing landscape. “We used to come across kites, vultures and sparrows regularly earlier,” she says. “But for the past 10 years or so, they have become rarer and rarer.”

Madhukar Hulsulkar under his mango tree: ‘Since 2012, our use of pesticides has increased a lot. Just this year, we have had to spray 5-7 times’. Photo: Parth M.N./People’s Archive of Rural India

“Pesticide use in India is still below one kilogram per hectare,” says Atul Deulgaonkar, Latur-based environmental journalist. “The US, Japan and other advanced industrial nations use 8-10 times as much. But they regulate their pesticides, we do not. Ours contain cancerous elements, which affect the birds around the farm. It kills them.”

Shinde blames critical changes in climate patterns for the productivity drop. “We used to have 70-75 rainy days in the four-month monsoon period [June-September],” he says. “It would drizzle, consistently and gently. In the past 15 years, the number of rainy days has halved. When it does rain, it pours maddeningly. And that is followed by a 20-day dry spell. It is impossible to farm in this weather.”

The India Meteorological Department’s data for Latur support his observations. In 2014, rainfall in the four monsoon months was 430 mm. The next year, 317 mm. In 2016, the district got 1,010 mm in those four months. In 2017, that was 760 mm. Last year, Latur got 530 mm in the monsoon season, of which 252 mm came in the single month of June. Even in the years where the district receives its ‘normal’ rainfall, the spread and dispersal have been most uneven.

As Chandrakant Bhoyar, senior geologist with the Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency, points out: “Torrential rainfall in limited time results in soil erosion. When, instead, it drizzles consistently, that helps the groundwater recharge.”

Shinde can no longer depend on groundwater because his four borewells are, more often than not, dry. “We used to strike water at 50 feet, but now even borewells 500 feet deep are dry.”

That throws up other problems. “If we do not sow enough, there is no fodder for the animals,” says Shinde. “Without water and fodder, farmers are unable to maintain their livestock. I had 20 head of cattle until 2009. Today, just nine.”

his is in Latur district of Marathwada, where for more than six months it’s above 32 degrees Celsius. Photo: Nishant Bhadreshwar/ People’s Archive of Rural India

Shinde’s mother, Kaveribai, still sharp and alert at 95, says “Latur was a hub of cotton since Lokmanya Tilak introduced it here in 1905.” She sits on the floor with folded legs and needs no help to get up. “We used to have ample rainfall to cultivate it. Today, soybean has taken its place.”

Shinde is happy his mother gave up active cultivation around two decades ago – before the hailstorms began. “They devastate the farmland within a few minutes. The biggest sufferers are those who own orchards.”

Also Read: Alternative Grains Can Help India Allay Impact of Global Heating on Agriculture

In this relatively better-off southern belt, orchard-growers have indeed been particularly hit. “The last hailstorm came in April this year,” says Madhukar Hulsulkar, taking me into the orchard where many yellow spots are visible on the tree trunks. “I lost fruit worth Rs 1.5 lakhs. We are down to 50 trees from the 90 we began with in 2000.” Now he’s considering giving up on orchards as “the hailstorms are becoming inevitable.”

Latur has, over a century, seen many shifts in cropping patterns. Once dominated by jowar (sorghum) and other millets, and to a lesser extent maize, it took to cotton in a big way from 1905.

Then came sugarcane from 1970, sunflower briefly, and large-scale soybean cultivation from 2000. The spread of cane and soybean was quite spectacular. In 2018-19, cane covered 67,000 hectares (say data from the Vasantdada Sugar Institute, Pune). And from one sugar factory in 1982, Latur now has 11. With the cash crops came the inescapable borewell explosion – there is no count of how many have been drilled – and intense groundwater exploitation. Over 100 years of cash cropping in a soil historically attuned to millets has had its inevitable impacts on water, soil, moisture and vegetation.

Also, forest cover in Latur is just 0.54%, says the state government website. Below even the pathetic Marathwada-wide average of 0.9%.

Kaveribai Shinde, 95, recalls, ‘Latur was a hub of cotton… We used to have ample rainfall to cultivate it’. Photo: Parth M.N./People’s Archive of Rural India

“It would be wrong to make a narrow causal equation between all these processes and climate change,” says Atul Deulgaonkar. “And difficult to support with hard evidence. Also, such change occurs across large regions and not within the human-drawn boundaries of a district. Marathwada, of which Latur is a small part, is experiencing profound changes in some ways linked to growing agro-ecological imbalances.

“But some correlation between the multiple processes does seem to exist across the larger region. And it is intriguing that extreme weather episodes and hailstorms really arrived and surged a decade after the last big crop shift and major changes in land use and technologies. Even if human activity cannot be condemned as the cause, it certainly contributes in significant measure to the climatic imbalances we’re seeing.”

Meanwhile, people are bewildered by the rising number of extreme weather episodes.

“Every agricultural cycle puts farmers under greater stress,” says Gunwant Hulsulkar. “That’s one of the reasons behind farmers suicides. My kids would be better off working as clerks at a government office.” His perspective on farming has changed with the climate.

“Agriculture increasingly seems a waste of time, energy and money,” says Subash Shinde. It was different in his mother’s time. “Farming was our natural choice,” says the effusive Kaveribai.

When I bid Kaveribai farewell with a namaste, she offers me a handshake instead. “Last year, my grandson saved money and made me travel on a plane,” she says with a proud grin. “This is how someone greeted me on the flight. The weather is changing, I thought our greeting habits should also change.”

This article was originally published in the People’s Archive of Rural India on August 26, 2019.

PARI’s nationwide reporting project on climate change is part of a UNDP-supported initiative to capture that phenomenon through the voices and lived experience of ordinary people.