Photo: PTI
Guwahati, May 16: Assam has been in the crosshair of nature’s fury from time immemorial. The state falls in seismic zone V making it prone to moderate to high-intensity earthquakes. Floods in the state are nearly annual events. In the post-independence period, in the years 1954, 1962, 1972, 1977, 1984, 1988, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2012, 2019, 2020 and 2022, floods caused much devastation and havoc. The frequency has increased in the last two decades and the state incurs a loss of more than INR 200 crore every year due to this disaster.
Assam receives the heaviest showers during the monsoon period from June to September; these are also typically periods of floods. But weather patterns are increasingly becoming atypical.
In 2022, Assam was ravaged by the first wave of flood due to extensive pre-monsoon showers in May, killing scores of people. In the month of December 2022, a freakish hailstorm covered Moran town in the upper Assam region in a layer of white sheets. Uncharacteristically blistering summers and short winters are now a norm in the state. Another atypical drift is the fluctuating character of weather within the same monsoon period. Rain falls in rapid bursts, bringing moderate to extreme flooding, in different geographical regions of the state; this is then followed by long periods of dry spells creating a drought-like situation. These extremities are a result of a wider global phenomenon- climate change.
In the list of India’s most vulnerable 25 districts to climate change, 15 are in Assam with Karinganj at the top. Climate change projections in the state indicate an increase of about 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 with extreme events of rainfall up by more than 35% with respect to the baseline period of 1971-2000. On the other end of the spectrum, drought weeks will rise by 75% for the same baseline.
These extremities of temperature and rainfall along with the emergence of new pests and diseases will reduce the food crop productivity in a predominantly rural state along with yields of cash crops like tea, fish, milk and bamboo. With less than 30% area in the state under assured irrigation, persistent dry spells due to climate change may have multiple ramifications including food insecurity and distress migration.
Understanding climate change:
Climate has been changing for millions of years naturally due to variations in solar cycles, volcanic eruptions and changes in the earth’s orbit. But human action has induced rapid change in the last two centuries. In this period there has been extraordinary growth in industrial activities driven by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. Burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Naturally occurring greenhouse gases like water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone, which only account for .04 percent of the atmosphere, trap a portion of the sun’s heat and help maintain a moderate temperature of about 14 degrees Celsius instead of a cold unliveable -18 degrees Celsius6. Human-induced emissions due to fossil fuel burning are, however, adding unsustainable amounts of additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Most of our daily activities right from buying a sachet of shampoo to driving result in carbon footprints i.e., the release of additional greenhouse gases.
To draw an analogy, if the earth were a person sleeping in the early part of a mild November night with a thin blanket, additional greenhouse gases due to human activity are akin to gradually increasing the thickness of the blanket. As the size of the blanket increases, the person increasingly becomes less comfortable. Human-induced greenhouse gases are the progressively increasing blanket layers that trap the sun’s heat and cause climate change. Translating this to numbers, the global temperature average has increased about 1 degree Celsius since 1880. In the past half-century, the rate of increase has been roughly 0.15 to 0.20 degree Celsius per decade. The often-quoted “1.5 degrees target” is simply keeping the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels i.e., 1880 when the temperature was 13.8 degrees Celsius. The average temperature in the year 2022 was 14.76 degrees Celsius. In short, we are moving from ‘easily habitable’ below 14 degrees Celsius to ‘not so easily habitable’ above 15 degrees Celsius.
This impact is not just intense droughts in parts of Africa and severe wildfires as seen across Europe recently as well as increased instances of floods and dry spells in Northeast India but also severe cold storms as experienced in the United States. Increasing freak weather patterns are the new normal and even cold waves are not an anomaly from a climate change perspective. This is because the earth is an interconnected system and temperature rise expedites the melting of ice caps which in turn triggers severe cold waves.
Drivers of climate change in Assam:
The drivers of climate change in Assam are both external and internal. Greenhouse gas emissions from the entire of humanity have a direct bearing on the grave climate crisis in the state. On the other hand, there has also been significant local contribution aggravating the situation. More than 30% of the state is forested but Assam lost more than 2600 square kilometers of tree cover in the last two decades. This is twice the land size of Delhi. Along with this alarming deforestation, the other major contributing sectors are agriculture, particularly the rapid transition to inorganic cultivation, construction and industry.
Dealing with the new reality:
Climate change falls in the category of what can be called a “wicked problem.” A wicked problem is a social problem that seems impossible to solve for three primary reasons: incomplete knowledge (while the impact of climate change is here and now, the ultimate scale of devastation is still a matter of speculation), decentralised nature of the problem (every person and economic activity result in emission) and economics (we live in a fossil fuel driven economy and transition to a carbon neutral economy in the short run looks improbable). While the government of Assam and the civil society here can do their bit to influence the external world, some concrete steps can be taken to tackle internal emissions.
Wicked problems need commitment, strategy, resources, and a long-term vision for resolution. The document on ‘State Action Plan on Climate Change’ is a good start. But it needs more detailing in terms of action points and grassroots engagement. It is critical to look at addressing the issue from three perspectives: awareness, adaptation, and mitigation.
Climate change, its impact, and ways to reduce individual carbon footprint must be part of the school curriculum along with a large-scale awareness drive in the state. The Swatch Bharat Mission could serve as a model for the campaign.
When it comes to adaptation, strengthening embankments in both Brahmaputra and Barak becomes paramount. As a primarily rural society, irrigation infrastructure and support for the majority of small landholders in the state will reduce their extreme vulnerability to climate change. Promoting crop diversity and moving from paddy mono-cropping practices can help address some of the vagaries of weather in the same season.
Checking the current deforestation, large-scale plantations of indigenous species, and subsidising low-carbon footprint agriculture can be important mitigation steps. Empowering the institution of Panchayat and equivalent bodies for natural resources conservation and management along with promoting renewable energy sources should be the way forward.
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has recently warned that at this rate the earth will become an inhospitable place to live with a "yawning gap between climate pledges, and reality" of governments across the world. Given its vulnerability and need, Assam can perhaps be among the first in putting in place a long-term goal and taking concrete steps to address this existential crisis.
About the author
Chandan Sarma is a consultant associated with Seven Sisters Development Assistance (SeSTA). SeSTA promotes climate change resilient rural livelihoods across Northeast India.
