Image Source: Getty
Data and analyses from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD)[1] show that the country’s cities are facing worsening threats of extreme weather events, including heat waves, cold waves, and floods. Coastal cities, in particular, are likely to experience greater vulnerability from cyclones, extreme precipitation events, and rising sea levels. International agencies such as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the International Institute for Environment and Development are also sounding the alarm on the climate change-induced weather events that will increase in both frequency and severity.
With the heightened recurrence of climate-related crises in Indian cities, the challenge of building climate resilience has come to the foreground of the national urbanisation discourse.
In 2022, for instance, across 16 states, IMD reported a steep number of heat wave days (about 280) across the country. The IMD also noted that the annual mean land surface air temperature that year averaged +0.51 0 C above the long-term average in the 1981-1991 period. The year 2022 was also the fifth hottest since 1901. At the same time, the country recorded 57 cold wave days in 2022, with the state of Haryana experiencing the highest number. Furthermore, many cities suffered from flooding events that caused massive losses in lives and livelihoods.
With the heightened recurrence of climate-related crises in Indian cities, the challenge of building climate resilience has come to the foreground of the national urbanisation discourse. India is also projected to further urbanise in the coming years, and larger proportions of people will live in cities in the future. There is now wide agreement among scholars of urban studies, civil society, and government administrators that cities must take serious steps, informed by science and well-defined, to mitigate the daunting challenges of climate change. As the world is yet far from reaching carbon neutrality, the imperative is to place maximum emphasis on building climate resilience and adaptation.
Climate change has a huge negative fallout for cities. In India, an analysis released in 2021 reported 120,000 deaths in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Lucknow that can be attributed to air pollution. Extreme climate events spell the destruction of municipal infrastructure and individual livelihoods and are huge anti-catalysts to city economies. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has warned that climate change-related job losses will cause India’s GDP to drop by 4.5 percent by 2030.
Extreme climate events spell the destruction of municipal infrastructure and individual livelihoods and are huge anti-catalysts to city economies.
The question, therefore, is whether Indian cities are considering climate resilience as a key element in governance and preparedness planning.
Overall, India-specific city reports do not paint a rosy picture. Among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the one that advocates for cities is SDG 11 (‘sustainable cities and communities’), and its primary goal is to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. According to the Sustainable Development Report 2022, India is not on track to achieving SDG 11. The degenerating scenario has been occupying the headlines in recent years, with specific reference to the air quality in India’s two most important cities— the national capital, Delhi, and the financial hub, Mumbai. In the case of Delhi, the air quality has sharply dipped well in advance of extreme winter, which has been the general pattern of worsening air. In the case of Mumbai, where it was earlier thought that the sea breeze protects the city, air pollution reached alarming levels beginning November 2023.
The situation in cities like Delhi and Mumbai would show that these urban areas have typically paid little attention to climate resilience. This is despite initiatives such as the National Clean Air Mission (CAM-INDIA), which aims to reduce PM2.5 by about one-third in five years in 100 of India’s most polluted cities. The response of cities appears more callous given their contribution to climate change: they consume about 75 percent of global primary energy and generate about 75 percent of the worldwide global CO2 emissions. It is incumbent, therefore, upon cities to take on a bigger role in the fight against climate change.
State governments have a key role to play in building climate resilient cities. To begin with, approaching climate resilience as a worthy activity that could be taken up in earnest by cities will no longer work. It is too critical a task to be left as a mere option. The preparation and implementation of climate action plans are not mentioned in the laws that govern Indian cities, and city statutes will now need to be amended to make this a compulsory task to be undertaken by urban local bodies (ULBs).
The situation in cities like Delhi and Mumbai would show that these urban areas have typically paid little attention to climate resilience.
Every city must be mandated to prepare a climate action plan (CAP) and implement it on an annual basis by providing for it in their annual budgets. This is by no means a novel, fanciful idea. Countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Slovakia and Denmark, have already made local climate plans mandatory. Many cities in the United States (San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles), South Korea (Seoul), Japan (Tokyo), Australia (Sydney, Melbourne), Indonesia (Jakarta), and South Africa (Cape Town, Durban) have also prepared CAPs that are compatible with the Paris Climate Agreement.
In Mumbai, the Municipal Corporation (BMC) has taken the lead in preparing a CAP, and Chennai has followed suit. The MCAP 2022 aims at increasing BMC’s attention on tackling climate change and strengthening Mumbai’s climate resilience. It identifies urban flooding, coastal risks, urban heat, landslides, and air pollution as the biggest threats and outlines ways of garnering resources to move from action planning to implementing strategic projects. The MCAP also suggests an institutional mechanism in the form of a ‘Climate Cell’ to coordinate the implementation and monitoring of all activities related to climate change. However, the preparation of CAP does not appear to be matched by its commitment in implementation and the BMC would have to do far more. All other cities would have to similarly prepare CAPs and lay down the institutional and financial mechanisms for its implementation.
The larger questions of how much human density a city can sustain, what is the volume of construction that can be permissible, and how much openness must be maintained, should not be dismissed.
For the smaller cities, the state governments would have to do some handholding at critical stages. All tasks that cities perform ought to be compulsorily examined through the climate lens. These include construction practices, waste management, and maximisation of green surfaces and the adoption of green technologies. At the same time, each state should erect a common platform where best practices in climate action could be shared. Educational and capacity-building institutions would have to devote their energies towards multi-stakeholder capacity-building and for the promotion of environmentally responsible behaviour. These would include the inculcation of habits that promote water conservation, minimising waste generation, greater use of public transport, and the practice of urban agriculture in homes and buildings.
While mitigation and adaptation measures are introduced, it is vital that strategies are framed by the principles of sustainability. The larger questions of how much human density a city can sustain, what is the volume of construction that can be permissible, and how much openness must be maintained, should not be dismissed. No city can simply carry on with activities that run counter to sustainability and hope that mitigation and adaptation measures will be able to successfully deal with the negative consequences.
Ramanath Jha is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
This essay is part of a larger compendium “Confronting the Climate Crisis: Pathways to Urban Resilience”
[1] The IMD is the primary organisation of the government of India responsible for meteorological observations and weather forecasts. It publishes regular reports about weather patterns and climatic changes in the country.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.