Environment & Climate Change

BE IT THE PANDEMIC OR CLIMATE CHANGE-INDUCED WEATHER DISASTERS, NATURE HAS SPOKEN. THERE IS NO TIME LEFT, WE NEED TO FIX WHAT IS BROKEN

The year 2020 was, I dare say, the most tumultuous, the most catastrophic and the most defining year of our lifetime. This crisis has no precedent—there is no rulebook that tells governments what to do, how to shut down economies and when to re-open them. The virus is a mutant, it jumped from its animal host to humans; it is pernicious because it seems to find new ways to hide itself—we can be asymptomatic and yet be a carrier of infection.

We slipped into 2020 without any indication of the horrors that awaited the world. Something was happening in Wuhan in China but not many of us noted it. What was on our screens was another worrying sight—bushfires scorching vast swathes of Australia, killing people, wildlife and destroying homes. The intensity of the fires had links to climate change, as these infernos were caused by increasing levels of heat, which had dried the ground and turned it into a tinderbox. This, combined with the prolonged drought, made it an ideal ground for the blaze.

But even as international attention focused on the fires, there was a much worse human tragedy playing out in our part of the world. By January, vast hordes of locusts had invaded the fields of Rajasthan and Gujarat, devouring crops and destroying farmers’ livelihoods. The sheer scale and intensity of this attack was also linked to climate change: unusual rains, cyclonic events and then extended monsoons in the deserts of the Arabian peninsula, east Africa and in western Indian states had created ideal breeding grounds for this critter that procreates exponentially. This, then, had led to this devastating locust upsurge, which is often seen to be a precursor to famine as the insects eat everything in sight.

By mid-March, the Covid-19 crisis had hit home and a lockdown was announced. The first phase of India’s lockdown ended in mid-April and it seemed, when it was extended till May 3 and then end of the month, that the end of the disease was within reach. But as I write this in end-December of this fateful year, we are going into the new year with a hope and a prayer but not much else.

Then, in May, we saw a humanitarian crisis when thousands of hun

gry, helpless people fled their place of work—the economy had collapsed and they had run out of money—to go home to their villages. We saw how the invisible of our city, the people who provided labour, produced goods and services so crucial for our well-being, were turned to outcasts. Thrown under the bus, literally, losing their lives because they slept on railway tracks and a train ran over them, or a truck mowed them down. I write this because we must not forget, we must now allow these images to be erased from our hearts and minds. All this has happened in our world. We must not forget.

On June 1, when the first unlock was announced, the rush was to open up. Rightly so, as the economy was on its knees, with the worst hit being the daily wagers who had no jobs to pay for food or anything. The government’s relief packages, however welcome, are hardly sufficient to manage the distress. But then in the past six months, as we opened up, we had to shut again and again as caseloads increased. Different cities, different state boundaries were closed for lockdown; some for weekends, some for a few days. Every festival, which should have brought cheer, led to increased caseloads. All this has been the year, and now I can safely say that fatigue has set in. We know that the virus is out there, but we now hope that in the new year, there will be the vaccine that brings us a miracle return of the old normal.

But this is not the only recount of the year’s events. In May, during the lockdown, the eastern side of India was hit by a super-cyclonic storm, Amphan, which devastated lives and property. Then Nisarga hit the western side and, since then, repeatedly heavy rains because of cyclonic activity and deep depressions in the oceans have bludgeoned many parts of southern and eastern India. During the worst months of Covid-19, we had many waves of floods hit different parts of the country. That these disparate events are linked to climate change is incontrovertible. What we are seeing today is the result of increased frequency and intensity of cyclones and variable and extreme rain events. This weather disruption, which is as bad as the Covid-19 disruption, is caused by changes in temperatures on land and on sea. This is adding to the force of destruction and the unpredictability of the event.

All these weather-related events are not natural or normal anymore. What is clear is that we face a double whammy. On the one hand, we are mismanaging our land and our water resources, which is making us more prone to drought or flood and, on the other hand, climate change is exacerbating the distress. This, when we know the aftermath of these events is worse because it takes away the development dividend and the years of investment in building infrastructure to improve the lives of people. As we can see from upheavals across the world— from India to the US—it is the poor (black or brown) who have been disproportionately hit by the virus. They have suffered twice; once because they lost lives to the contagion, and again because they lost livelihoods.

There is also the other reality that Covid-19 has thrown at us. The places where the disease is most likely to breed is where there are no urban services, where settlements are overcrowded, where safe water supply and sanitation is inadequate and people have no way to stay safe. This crisis has amplified the inequity and deep divisions in our world.

Covid-19 is also the result of our progressively worsening dystopian relationship with nature. On the one hand, we are pushing every kind of chemical and toxin into our food. This is making food a source of disease, not just nutrition. Antibiotics are being shoved into animals and even crops—not for disease control but to make them grow more, put on weight, so that business profits. As a result, resistance to drugs needed for human survival is on the rise. Simultaneously, we are growing our food in ways that favour disease growth—industrial farms, which are vertically integrated, are fast becoming the source of contagion. This breaking of the boundaries between animal and human habitats will lead to more such outbreaks. And this, in a world that is even more interconnected and globalised, will make the infection wildly contagious.

This year also serves a stark reminder—we are seeing what we are, the years of lost time when we could have invested in public health and building a more equitable society where the poor are not doubly hit. It is the same with climate change and every other issue that stares us down today. Too much time has been wasted in denial of the problem, in not getting our act together or acting at the speed and scale that is needed. We do not have the luxury of time anymore. My generation has squandered the privilege away.

Now what we should really be

IT’S A DOUBLE WHAMMY, WE MISMANAGED OUR LAND/ WATER RESOURCES, AND ARE HENCE MORE PRONE TO DROUGHT OR FLOOD. MEANWHILE, CLIMATE CHANGE WORSENS THE DISTRESS

thinking about is the collective vulnerability of our world. The most macho leaders, the most high-tech scientific establishments and most mighty economic prowess have all met their match in this lowly virus. It should make us humble and think about what we need to do differently. But this is, I suspect, where we will err.

The most critical issue of our globalised world is our response to Covid-19 and what this means for the next planetary emergency—climate change. We knew we should have acted together and we did not.

China did not share information quickly enough, the virus moved out of the country and spread infection; the World Health Organization (WHO) did not act swiftly enough, or maybe its voice was not respected enough to be heeded. The UN Security Council did not meet for weeks and, when it did, it just whimpered and died.

It’s not just about China and the WHO—each country has shown in this crisis that it is for itself in this dog-eat-dog world. It has reached depths where countries pirated the others’ protective equipment, hoarded masks and gowns that were needed for healthcare workers, competed for medicine supplies and sparred about who would first make the vaccine. Today, when the vaccine is on the horizon, the issue is not how the world will work together to ensure that everyone has access. No, it is again about how countries will hoard and protect their people, forgetting that unless the world is protected from the virus, this pandemic will not go away.

It is frightening to think of this when we know that the coronavirus pandemic is an outcome of an interdependent globalised world. It is also clear that we are only as strong as our strongest link. We will not win this, unless we win it together. Similarly, climate change needs global leadership: if one country continues to emit, then all the actions of the rest could be negated. But if we want everyone to act, then we must build a cooperative agreement, one in which the last person, the last country has its right to development.

But what is also clear is that in this year, we have seen disorder and disruption at a scale that we never imagined. So, now we need the same scale to fix what is broken in our relationship with Nature. The future, like never before, is in our hands. Nature has spoken. Now we should speak gently back to her.

2021: What must change

This, then, is the agenda for the year ahead. There are signs of change— small, but significant—that we must build on in the year to come. First, there is the change of leadership in the US. The exit of Donald Trump and the entry of Joe Biden-Kamala Harris means that climate change is back on the global agenda. Biden-Harris have said that the US will rejoin the Paris Agreement, signed in 2015 under which all countries have agreed to undertake emission reductions. This is big, but not big enough. It is important to keep in mind that the US remains addicted to cheap energy—now shale gas, instead of coal—and that it will not even meet the insignificant target under the Paris Agreement. But still, the US will no longer be an outlier, it will be back on the high table to discuss climate change action in 2021. This is crucial as we are running out of time.

Second is the agenda for blue skies and clear lungs. In 2020, one ironic benefit of the lockdown was the improvement in air quality in our cities; it was almost as if nature was reclaiming her space. But it is also a fact that this improvement came at huge economic cost and is not sustainable. Therefore, going forward we need to ensure that we can do everything— from energy to mobility transformation—to keep the benefits of clean air, even as we move the economy forward.

Third, and most critical, is the question of work and production. The workers who fled the city told us that it was inhospitable, that their living and working conditions were appalling. This is the core of the global economic problem, as ‘production’ has moved to where the cost of labour and environment can be discounted. But this pandemic year tells us that the future must be different, and even if this increases cost of production and decreases consumption, it must be the way going forward. This is also where the real opportunity lies—investment in rural economies to build resilience and livelihoods. In this age of climate change risk, this is where the real action must be.

Finally, there is the question of interdependence. This pandemic year has shown us how the virus has exacerbated the inequities in our world. But it also teaches us that the future must be different. Very different. This, then, is the curse of 2020, and the promise of 2021. ■

IN THIS CRISIS, EACH COUNTRY HAS SHOWN THAT IT IS FOR ITSELF IN THIS DOG-EATDOG WORLD. THIS, WHEN WE KNOW THE PANDEMIC IS AN OUTCOME OF AN INTERDEPENDENT GLOBALISED WORLD