Global climate change can hit India hard: World Bank study

20 Jun 2013 Evaluate

As per the World Bank study, South Asia with India is likely to face the worst heat from climate change as global warming could lead to extremely hot summer, more droughts, water scarcity, severe flooding, and poor food production in this region.

A World Bank report 'Turn Down the Heat' says that shifting rainfall patterns in India would leave some areas under water, while others, deprived of adequate rain and would suffer severe water crisis, which could impact irrigation, power generation and even drinking water availability in some cases. Further, an expected 2-2.5 degrees Celsius rise in the world's average temperature in the next few decades would make India's summer monsoon unpredictable, affecting crop production and may impact food adequacy for some 63 million people, since almost 60 per cent of India’s crop area is rain-fed.

By adding further, the World bank said that India’s two metro cities, Kolkata and Mumbai, are likely to be hit by extreme floods, more intense cyclones and rising sea levels and could roll back decades of development gains in India.

However, in order to minimise the impact of changing climate, there is a need to find innovative ways to improve both energy efficiency and the performance of renewable energies and to ensure that the cities become climate resilient. Further, the countries have to develop climate-smart agriculture practices, it added.

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