Opinion: Tackling Doom Loops Of Climate Change For Sustainable Development

As environment Day is approaching on 5th June, It provides an appropriate time for reflection on climate change, exerting multifaceted adverse impacts on the economic, social, and cultural spheres of our lives.

Recent extreme weather events such as severe draughts followed by catastrophic floods in Pakistan, the worst recorded drought in Europe in five centuries, ferocious cyclones such as the Bomb cyclones in the USA, the cycle Freddy in the Southern Indian Ocean region, and the typhoon Hinnamnor in South Korea and Japan are all related to the adverse effects of climate change.

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According to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) estimates, India recorded extreme weather events on more than eighty-eight percent of days in the first nine months of 2022. The changing weather patterns, including increased fluctuations in Monsoons, producing long dry periods and short spells of heavy rains, can be linked to climate change.

The geographical location, long coastline, a large share of the population dependent on agriculture, and dependence on monsoons for most of its rainfall, among other factors, make India highly susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change and global warming. The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) estimates that India might have already lost about 3 percent of its gross-domestic-product (GDP) at current levels of global warming and risks losing up to ten percent of its GDP in the extreme case of a temperature increase by 3oC over pre-industrial levels.

The urgency of climate corrective actions is further warranted by the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) synthesis report pointing that the temperature increase due to global warming has already reached 1.1oC and is approaching 1.5oC faster than predicted. Tackling climate change becomes more daunting due to the presence of doom loops- self-reinforcing vicious loops- among the causes and consequences of climate change, implying that climate change, if left unaddressed, can self-perpetuate itself at higher levels with higher adverse impacts.

Doom loops of climate change

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Among multiple doom loops of climate change, we use three illustrative examples to illustrate the reinforcing interdependence between the causes and consequences of climate change. Climate change enhances weather risks and reduces the productivity and profitability of agriculture. For instance, abnormally high temperatures in March 2022 resulted in about a twenty-percent fall in wheat yields, the largest decline in two decades. In response to such events, farmers, facing declining incomes, resort to the intensification of agriculture characterized by practices such as enhanced tilling, higher irrigation, stubble burning, and indiscriminate usage of chemical inputs that further release GHGs causing greenhouse warming.

For instance, the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) points out that climate change results in increased pest pressure and reduced efficacy of pesticides fueling an increased use of synthetic pesticides in conventional agriculture, producing higher quantities of global warming causing greenhouse gases.

Also, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) estimates that high evaporative demand due to increased temperatures has increased agricultural water consumption by close to thirty percent in states such as Punjab, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh. Satiating this enhanced water demand from ground aquifers depletes groundwater resources and releases GHGs. Resource-intensive agriculture also harms the life-supporting components of the natural environment, including the air, water, and soil.

Likewise, deforestation releases greenhouse gases (GHGs), contributing to global warming and climate change, producing hot, dry, and windy weather conditions favorable for forest fires. A report by the United Nations Environment Program predicts that notwithstanding the most ambitious efforts to reduce GHG emissions, there will be a dramatic increase in the frequency of extreme fire events.

The European Union Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service estimates that wildfires during 2021 emitted close to 1.8 billion tons of carbon globally. It expects this to increase as drier and warmer conditions resulting from climate change exacerbate forest fire risks.

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Furthermore, climate change exacerbates the social, economic, and environmental factors contributing to civil wars and geopolitical conflicts that, besides their severe social and economic costs, also have huge greenhouse gas and ecological footprint. They exert high environmental costs in terms of indiscriminate resource exploitation to fund the war economy, damaged infrastructure, and hampered environmental restoration and protection work.

They result in deforestation, loss of species, and various kinds of pollution. For instance, the CO2 emissions from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have already surpassed 100 million tons. Sans appropriate conflict resolution mechanisms and peace agreements, the war-ravaged damaged ecosystems, unless restored, experience diminished capacity to support socio-economic activities fueling subsequent cycles of disorder and violence.

Way forward

Awareness of doom loops also helps us foresee the first and second-order effects of any action. Given the doom loops of climate change, tackling climate change requires a multi-sectoral, multi-level approach focused on policy measures, organizational initiatives, and individual actions. For instance, promoting the millets- less resource-intensive, hardy crops- besides achieving food and nutritional security and supporting small and marginal farmers practicing dryland agriculture can help tackle climate change.

Similarly, given the huge loss of over 6.6 lakh hectares of forest cover in India over the last three decades, urgent efforts for preserving forest cover and afforestation become necessary to check the self-reinforcing loop of climate change, global warming and forest fires. Adopting agroforestry and encouraging the participation of forest dwellers in forest preservation and afforestation provide useful avenues for preserving forests and afforestation.

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Moreover, while the signatories of the Paris Agreement set a goal of negative carbon emissions, entailing a reduction of carbon emissions by close to fifty percent by the year 2030, the International Energy Agency estimates that the annual carbon emissions, rather than decreasing, are growing by around 1.7%. Besides quick decisions and actions on the much-needed financing and technology transfer demands from affected nations lacking historical responsibility and present capabilities for climate mitigation and adaptation, focus also needs to be directed at micro-level individual actions and choices as they can matter a lot in the fight against climate change.

The Mission LiFE nudging people towards adopting environmentally sustainable lifestyles and environmentally responsible behavior, such as judicious choices regarding energy production and consumption, needs to be enthusiastically implemented. Similarly, promoting energy literacy among citizens can immensely help in the fight against climate change. Furthermore, as tackling climate change and progress towards sustainable development goals mutually reinforce each other, policymakers need to consider and leverage these interlinkages for tackling the doom loop of climate change to save the future of our planet. The Sooner, the better, as there is no Planet B.

This article is published in association with Energy Swaraj Foundation as part of our Climate Action series. Prof. Solanki is founder of Energy Swaraj Foundation and Neha Kumari is a research associate at Energy Research Foundation.