The latest report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was released on Monday and it has warned of multiple climate change-induced disasters in the coming two decades even if some strong actions would be taken to decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases.
The report has said that the ability of human beings and natural systems to cope with the changes in climate had already been tested and any further increase in global warming would make it more difficult for people to adapt. It mentioned that more than 3.5 billion people accounting for more than 45 per cent of the global population have been living in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change. The report has also identified India as one of the vulnerable hotspots with various areas and some important cities facing a severe risk of climate disasters including flooding, sea-level rise, and heatwaves.
These warnings have come in the 2nd part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report which has talked about climate change, its impacts, risks, and vulnerabilities along with the adaptation options available. The first assessment report of the IPCC was released in August last year which was centred around the scientific basis of climate change. The third and final part of this report will be looking into the possibilities of reducing emissions, which is estimated to be out by April.
The first of these assessments that came out in the year 1990 is one of the most comprehensive evaluations of the state of our planet’s climate. Hundreds of experts from around the world go through every available piece of relevant information that has been published scientific information to prepare a common understanding of climate change. Four reports, each a thousand pages long had come out in the years 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2015. These have formed the basis of the international community’s response to climate change.
The sixth assessment that was released yesterday has not talked about anything remarkably new. Over the past few years, each of these assessment reports has been built on the work of the previous ones, just adding more evidence, information and data. Each of these reports progressively expands the scope of their assessment and introduces fresh information about different aspects of the changing climate.
For the first time, the report has also made an assessment of regional and sectoral impacts of climate change along with the risks to, and vulnerabilities of, mega-cities all over the world. For instance, the report has mentioned that Mumbai is at high risk of sea-level rise and severe flooding, Ahmedabad faces serious threats from heatwaves. This type of information was not available in the previous reports by the IPCC. The latest report has quantified the risks by looking at the granular data to ensure that there is a clear understanding of the threats that are posed to these cities.
The latest reports, for the first time, has also looked at the health impacts of climate change and found that climate change has been increasing vector-borne and water-borne diseases including malaria, or dengue, specifically in the sub-tropical regions of Asia.