What Are the Policy Challenges that National Governments Face in Addressing Climate Change?

Abstract

The geographic coverage of this paper focuses on the Indian context and the policy challenges that the Government of India faces while implementing climate-friendly policy. The information presented in this paper is derived from various sources that include journals and newspaper articles. This paper examines some of the adverse impacts of climate change on India’s population and the loopholes in existing policy, while primarily focusing on how climate change affects gender, caste, food security, and health in India.

In nations like India, the promise of economic growth usually comes at the cost of the environment. Asia’s second largest economy (in terms of PPP) is now at the frontline of climate change. With two thirds of the country still to be developed, 16 percent of the human race still strives to realize the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as upward social mobility. For the Indian Government, allowing this dream to eventually become a reality would mean formulating policies that allow economic and social development on a frugal climate budget.

Introduction

Tackling climate change whilst encouraging sustainable development policy is probably the biggest challenge that governments around the world face. World over, climate change is projected to have a substantial ecological and socio-economic impact. While the developed world will be significantly affected by anthropogenic climate change, it is the developing nations that will take the hardest hit. Millions living in densely populated developing countries like India, Bangladesh and nations on the African continent, live in danger of losing their livelihoods due to changing climatic patterns. In these countries, unseasonal rain, drought, floods, and heat waves threaten to become more frequent as global temperatures continue to rise. As a result, poorer nations have the added responsibility of implementing development policies that are also climate-friendly. Extreme weather events mean that it becomes increasingly difficult for nations like India to realize the success of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Agriculture and Food Policy

India has a large populace that is heavily dependent on agriculture, with 70 percent of its rural poor depending upon it as their sole source of income. Sixty percent of this crop area is rain fed and 68 percent of cultivated land vests with small farmers. About 12 percent of India’s arable land is flood prone and a large percentage is drought prone (Oxfam, 2014). As a result, the nation’s agricultural sector is highly climate sensitive. With the severity of incidents like drought and floods predicted to increase, the precariousness of livelihoods will also be exacerbated.

It is crucial for the Indian government to devise policies that ensure food security. Rising temperatures would mean that the Government would need to address issues like lowered food grain yields. It also becomes imperative to implement policy that encourages indigenous drought-tolerant plant variety, eventually helping develop crops that are resilient to extreme weather and to pests. Livestock, especially ruminant animals, will suffer greatly from thermal stress. Consequently, milk yields are expected to decline 1.5 per cent by 2020 and 13.5 percent by 2050 (Oxfam, 2014).

The Green Revolution in India encouraged farming practices that involved mono-crop sharing, a limited variety of crops, and the use of non-indigenous variety of cattle and crops. The heavy dependence on a few major crops and the indiscriminate use of pesticides is a model of agriculture that is still in use today. Consequently, this undermines both biodiversity and the agricultural sector’s ability to cope with drought and flood. Furthermore, farming practices that have been backed by retrograde agricultural policy, have resulted in the misuse of fertilizers and pesticides, which in turn have been detrimental to soil health. As a result, India’s food security is jeopardized. Climate change will add to the woes of India’s food policy and to the pre-existing vulnerabilities of the agrarian sector.

Climate change and Health Policy

Malnourishment leads to millions of deaths each year by lowering life expectancy and by increasing susceptibility to infectious diseases like gastroenteritis, cholera and respiratory illnesses.

Currently, nearly half of all India’s children – approximately 60 million – are underweight, about 45% are stunted (too short for their age), 20% are wasted (too thin for their height, indicating acute malnutrition), 75% are anemic, and 57% are Vitamin A deficient (World Bank, 2013). These numbers are set to rise as floods and drought lead a decrease in crop yield. With rising temperatures affecting food security, something that India will have to grapple with in the coming years is the rise in hidden hunger and the percentage of malnourished individuals.

India’s burden of disease will also in all likelihood increase because of climate change lengthening transmission seasons of vector borne diseases. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change noted in its 2007 report that climate change may contribute to expanding risk areas for infectious diseases such as dengue and may increase the burden of diarrheal diseases, putting more people at risk (IPCC 2007) and undermining existing health infrastructure.

Unlike its developed counterparts, India has a dearth of policy that allows the implementation of successful flood control efforts and improves upon sanitation infrastructure. In many Indian states, surveillance activities to detect and control outbreaks and minimize disease risks caused from flooding are absent. For instance, the 2018 Kerala floods, a disaster caused by climate change, were made deadlier by the lack of preparedness and absence of flood control efforts. This killed 483 people, of which, 159 died of water-borne diseases like cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea, hepatitis and leptospirosis (Times of India, 2018). The death toll caused due to the flooding in Kerala could have been reduced greatly had India’s Central Water Commission set up flood forecasting stations in Kerala. Additionally, a 2017 report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG, 2017), observed that no dam breakage analysis was conducted on any of the state’s dams. Much like most other Indian states, Kerala neither had a mock drill nor did it have emergency action plans that would otherwise be put into effect in the event of extreme rainfall.

Instances of flooding also contribute to increased transmission rates in vector and rodent borne diseases. For example, stagnant water provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes, potentially aiding in the spread of malaria. Malaria is an existing public health concern in India, and is also most sensitive to long term climate change. Warming temperatures are conducive to the spread of vector borne diseases, as they shorten the pathogen’s incubation period  (NCBI, 2009).

As climate change increases temperatures, regions of India will eventually become uninhabitable. Excessive heat can have a devastating impact on human health, resulting in heat cramps, exhaustion, and life- threatening heat strokes. Children, the elderly, the homeless, and outdoor workers are most vulnerable (Van Oldenborgh et al, 2018). An analysis of Indian and other South Asian cities, found that if current warming trends continued, by the end of the century, wet-bulb temperatures — a measure of heat and humidity, that indicate the point beyond which the body can no longer cool itself (35 °C or 95 °F)– would be so high that people who are exposed beyond 5 hours would be unable to survive (MIT, 2017).

One paper found that a heat wave that struck Ahmedabad a city in the Indian state of Gujarat, in May 2010, led to a 43 per cent increase in mortality when compared to the same time period during other years in Ahmedabad (Azhar et al, 2014). This particular heat wave caused temperatures to soar to 46.8 °C or 118 °F. However, it wasn’t until 2013 that the state government put into effect an action plan wherein school days were reduced, government work programmes ceased, and free water was distributed in busy areas. The Government of Gujarat’s heat action plan utilized a four-pronged strategy:

1. The first step initially involved setting up information broadcasting channels through SMS, and more recently started using cross platform messaging services like WhatsApp.
2. The second step set up a warning system that mapped out an action plan for government agencies.
3. The third step involved training healthcare professionals to better respond to heat induced illnesses
4. The final step addressed adapting the physical plan of the city so as to better cope with heat waves by mapping areas most susceptible to extreme temperature, improving accessibility to drinking water and temporarily constructing cooling shelters.

Across India, instances of heat-stress are also set to increase as most of the nation’s poor have little or no access to electricity, let alone to air-conditioning. The current policy for rural electrification means that only 10% of a village needs to receive electricity in order for the entire hamlet to be deemed “electrified.” This is why even though 100% electrification of villages has been achieved, government data–Government of India’s (GOI) Saubhagya Scheme– shows that as of today, there are still an excess of 10 million households without electricity. This massive loophole in policy and implementation leaves millions susceptible to cold and heat waves.

India’s current allocation to its healthcare sector is a little over 1% of its GDP—amongst the lowest in the world. The World Health Organization’s health financing profile for 2017 shows 67.78% of total expenditure on health is paid out of pocket. The world average is 18.2%. This implies that quality healthcare is virtually inaccessible to the poorest and those most affected by climate change. With rising temperatures aggravating the instances of disease, and the country’s growing populace, it is now crucial that policy makers allocate larger expenditure to healthcare.  

Climate Change, Gender, and Caste

In India’s rural areas, climate change severely impacts women’s livelihoods, whilst increasing individual workload and decreasing productivity. Issues like poverty, extreme gender inequality, and lack of access to the decision-making process add to overall vulnerability amongst women. All in all, women and girls are disproportionately more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men.

Even today, many women in rural India lack/are denied access to education. In many parts of the country, young girls who should ideally be in school are still expected to take on a major portion of the housework. The census conducted in 2011 (Literacy Rate Census), showed that only 65.46% women/girls could read and write, whereas the male literacy rate was over 80%. The census also showed that in rural areas, up to 45% of girls dropped of school between 1st and the 5th grade. This alarmingly high rate of school dropouts amongst young girls is attributed to them being responsible for household work i.e. cooking, fetching water, collecting firewood, harvesting crops etc.

A rise in extreme events (heat wave and drought) could mean a corresponding increase in women’s workload and a reduction in their overall productivity–Where women will have to walk greater distances to fetch water or collect firewood. A 2004 World Bank report, documented how women and children on an average spend an hour everyday walking 4-8 kilometers to fetch water from government-managed tanks.

Climate change also disproportionately affects women’s health. Alongside, dwindling access to natural resources, other aspects such as heavy workload, early childbearing, climate related disease outbreaks and lack of food security, make women highly vulnerable. In the event of floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters, the loss of shelter and social security nets tremendously undermine women’s wellbeing. For instance, during the Kerala floods several women were left with little or no access to sanitation and women in relief camps were particularly vulnerable to harassment.

In Indian villages, caste also plays an important role in how households and social groups adapt to climate change. The Scheduled Castes of India, namely the Dalits, constitute a large population of the nation’s landless poor. 71% of India’s Scheduled Caste farmers, are agricultural laborers i.e. they work for wages on land that they do not own (SECC, 2011). Landlessness and dependence on manual labor for their livelihood are key deprivations that India’s most disenfranchised castes face, making them extremely vulnerable to impoverishment and to climate change. The Government’s current policy of providing minimum support prices to farmers is more likely to benefit the farmers who own the land, than those who work for wages.

India’s caste system greatly pressurizes the livelihoods of its Scheduled Castes and its Scheduled Tribes. Existing GOI policy often overlooks the fact that the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) have very high stakes in the environment because of their landlessness and their dependence on natural resources to sustain livelihoods. The pervasive internalization of the caste system, and the discrimination and exclusion that stems from it, continues to deprive India’s SC/STs of their right to dignity, and their right to political and economic opportunities. Additionally, their geographical and social vulnerabilities mean that their ability to adapt and deal with climate change comes with insurmountable difficulty.

Conclusion

Increases in temperature would limit governmental and societal capacities, which would be intensified by India’s existing burden of disease, caste discrimination, gender inequality, hunger, poverty and environmental degradation. For countries like India, wide ranging policy reform will be necessary in order to address both existing and predicted vulnerabilities within its population.

Dealing with the externalities that come with variations in temperature is a huge challenge, which will require significant and consistent financial and political sustenance. Climate change will hit nations like Bangladesh, and India the hardest and it will greatly influence how governments draft, renew, and implement policy.

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