Compound climate disasters likely this yr

NEWDELHI: Climate disasters this year, including Cyclone Amphan expected to hit India’s eastern coast on Wednesday, are likely to compound the problems related to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic since 2020 is also likely to be the warmest on record, a paper published on May 15 in British Nature journal has warned.

There is a 74.67% chance of 2020 being the warmest year ever and a 99.94% chance that it will among the top five warmest years, the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in March.

The paper by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists and students has listed heat waves in north India, floods in the delta regions of West Bengal and Bangladesh, wildfires in Siberia, bushfires in Australia, locust crises, drought, water scarcity and floods in Africa, a hurricane in the US among others as climate-attributable risks. The risks are likely to intersect with the Covid 19 crisis over the next 12 to 18 months.

“A concerning body of evidence already indicates that climate hazards, which are increasing in frequency and intensity under climate change, are likely to intersect with the Covid-19 outbreak and public health response. These compound risks will exacerbate and be exacerbated by the unfolding economic crisis and long-standing socioeconomic and racial disparities, both within countries and across regions,” said the paper.

It warned extreme heat events in the US and outside are likely to lead to excess mortality and morbidity, disrupt power supplies, hospitals and emergency services, especially in cities.

Emergency response agencies and first responders will have to be deployed across multiple crises at the same time. For example, American Federal Emergency Management Agency is coordinating Covid-19 as well as ongoing extreme weather responses.

India’s National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is faced with similar dual responsibilities. “Cyclone Amphan is intense and has the potential of largescale damage. It is a big challenge as the cyclone is striking during the outbreak of Covid-19. We [NDRF] are facing two disasters,” NDRF chief SN Pradhan said.

The paper has recommended coordination at every level of government to prevent potential conflicts of strategy across agencies as difficult policy decisions may lie ahead, including whether hospitals, especially intensive care units, can be evacuated safely.

Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said while preparing the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, they realised that the worst-case scenarios are the compound climate events. . “For example, floods due to extreme rains and the high tide coming together when the sea level is also high .... ,” said Koll.