April 2, 2023, Sunday

12 noon – 1 pm

• The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released in March 2023. This report generally gets published every 7^th year since 1956. The new report gives a very troubling picture as we all know that climate change is affecting every corner of the world. 
• This is the sixth report, since the body was set up in 1988. Each assessment took around 6-8 years to compile. 
• This report was made by contribution of 270 experts from 67 countries. They were invited to take on the role in the Working Group II for the contribution to IPCC 6^th assessment report. There were three working groups. Group 1 underlined the present, past & future of the climate change. Group 2 studied the alternates to adapt to the climate change. The group 3 was on climate change mitigation. The assessment report aims to assess risk arising from climate change & these result from climate related hazards such as droughts, floods but also considered the exposure & vulnerability of human & ecological system. 
• As part of this assessment the IPCC considers five broad categories of risks known as RFCs (reasons for concern) and how the risk grows with climate change. 
• RFC1 (unique and threatened systems) involves ecological and human systems that have restricted geographic ranges constrained by climate-related conditions and have high endemism or other distinctive properties. 
• RFC2 is extreme weather events. Risk to human health, livelihoods or ecosystem from extreme weather like heat wave, flood, drought, forest fires. 
• RFC3 is distribution of impacts. This reflects how risks are distributed unevenly across regions and populations.
• RFC4 is global aggregate impacts i.e., impacts to socioecological systems that can be aggregated into a single global matrix like financial loss, lives affected, species loss. 
• RFC5 is large scale singular events, abrupt drastic or irreversible changes in physical or ecological systems. 
• Much more severe impacts are in store if we fail to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions this decade as per the recommendations. 
• The recent unusual heavy rains in the northern part of India have generally not been observed for the past several years.
• The latest report is one of the most comprehensive examinations of the intensifying impact of climate change and future risk, particularly for resource-poor countries and marginalized countries.  
• There are six important lessons to learn from this report. 
• The impact of climate change is already more severe than expected, particularly drought, extreme heat, flood, already threatened food security and livelihood of millions of people. 
• Today half of the population faces water insecurity. Wild fires are scouring larger areas than ever before. Higher temperatures are also enabling the spread of vector borne diseases. 
• Secondly, we may face even more impact of climate change in near future. The IPCC report estimates that in the next decade climate change will drive - from 32 million to 132 million more people to extreme poverty. Global warming will jeopardize food security as well as increased in incidence of heat related mortality, heart diseases and mental health challenges. 
• Third, this risk will escalate quickly with higher temperature. The report states that every tenth of a degree of additional warming will escalate threat to the people and its ecosystem. Even limiting global warming to 1.5 degree (which is the global target in the Paris Agreement) is not safe for all. Even in 1.5 degree, as per the report, the biodiversity loss will be 14%, drought will impact 0.95 billion people. The food security cost for adaptation and residual damage to major crops will be 63 billion dollars &there will be 45-58% increase in fires and 24% increase in floods. 
• Fourth, inequality, conflict and developmental challenges will increase the vulnerability to more climate change. 
• Fifth, adaptation is very crucial. More support must reach to vulnerable people. 
• Lastly, the world needs urgent action now to address losses and damage. 
• We are discussing those things such as climate change, which are becoming irreversible now. 
• The race to development and the rapidity with which we are adopting technology, climate change is inevitable and it has already occurred. 
• Our objective should be how to adapt to new environment or climate, how to change life style in these new situations and how crop patterns can be changed. 
• Rather than constantly focusing on adverse impacts, the discussion should now focus on how we can adopt to the changed climate. We need to focus on both mitigation and adaption.
• We should be very specific and focus on 2-3 factors, which affect India as a whole. One such factor is using of renewable energy and reduction of fossil fuel consumption. 
• There are many sources of renewable energy which can be considered as a part of thermal substitution. An action plan with detailed mapping of all the resources is needed. 
• This year had been declared as the Year of the Millets. We have to think how such crops can be part of adaptability to climate change.
• Children too have to adapt, who have become very used to technology. Awareness is most important. 
• We have to make change in ourself to bring about a change. 
• Many scientists are now saying that the impact of the environment is now irreversible. The only thing we can do is to plant more and more trees; rather than using vehicles we should walk more. 
• The components of the earth are meant to complement each other, they balance each other. If they are disturbed, this results in erratic seasons, which we call climate change. This change is inevitable.
• We should talk local. Once the local environment is protected, water body is protected and waste is reduced. When we are able to recycle everything, when we are able to change our food habits, only then we will be able to reach from “local to global”. This is the only fundamental aspect that can work.
• If we are able to control the pollution in the environment then we will be able to save our climate.
• In 2018, IPCC warned that emissions must be halved by 2030 compared to 2010 levels to have good chance of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees only. But emissions continue to rise. Last year they rose a little under 1%. 
• What should the governments do? First is to reduce emissions sharply and give up fossil fuels, increase energy efficiency, rethink agriculture and restore forests/degraded natural landscapes. It may also be necessary to develop technology that suck carbon dioxide from the air called direct air capture or explore other means for climate repair. 
• When adopting for AR6 it is useful to recall AR5 key conclusions & identify knowledge gaps.
• Profiteering is the greatest obstacle in implementation at the ground level. If we do not change our behavior to protect the environment, we cannot achieve success. 

Participants

Dr Anil Kumar

Mr Vivek Kumar

Mr Sanjiv Kumar

Dr SK Gupta

Dr Dipankar Saha

Mr Amit Jain

Ms Neena Gupta

Mr Lovekesh Chandra

Mr Neeraj Tyagi

Dr S Sharma