Recent Spate Of Climate Disasters Is Alarming Says Vinod Thomas
India needs to phase out, not expand, use of coal power says former World Bank Official Vinod Thomas
(Image: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
A GLOBAL INDIAN TIMES INTERVIEW
September 27, 2024
A second edition of Vinod Thomas’s Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change was published this month.
In the first edition, published a year ago, Thomas advocated implementing preventive measures, and not just steps in coping, in order to build resilience. Recovery from a climate-related disaster is not just about returning to how things were but building back better. He added that the teaching of business and economics needs to be revised to factor in the failure of businesses and governments to tackle global warming.
Thomas, 75-years-old, is a Distinguished Fellow in Development Management at the Asian Institute of Management, Manila. His current areas of work are climate change, sustainable development, disaster risk management and resilience building.
Earlier he was Senior Vice President, Independent Evaluation, at the World Bank Group, Washington D.C., and Director General, Independent Evaluation, Asian Development Bank.
Thomas is the author of 17 books, including The Quality of Growth; Climate Change and Natural Disasters; Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change and Economic Evaluation of Sustainable Development (with Namrata Chindarkar). He earned an MA and PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and a BA from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
In a conversation with Global Indian Times, Thomas discusses the background to his second edition of Risk and Resilience.
Global Indian Times: What major changes have you seen since you first published the book a year ago?
Vinod Thomas: The second edition was motivated by the recognition of rapid changes surrounding the climate emergency, and of the woeful inadequacy of recent actions.
Climate scientists are seeing the breakneck speed of recent climate disasters – massive flooding in Europe and Pakistan, spate of hurricanes in the United States and typhoons in China, record-breaking heat wave in India - as an indication that their worst-case scenarios are playing out. Some are concerned that they might have underestimated the speed and scale of the crisis. It is important to present this realization especially as there is another storyline falsely spread by the fossil fuel lobby that the scientists’ disaster scenarios are overstated. 2023 saw all-time records in weather extremes and an avalanche of new studies brings greater clarity about the nature of the crisis.
The book update is also prompted by the ups and downs in tackling the problem over the past year, which have been complicated by competing geopolitical, health and economic emergencies. The outcomes of the COP27 (climate) summit, held in Egypt in 2022, remain unimpressive. While member nations laudably committed to a specific fund for "loss and damage”, beyond the usual financial support present in earlier COPs, most damaging is the continually lukewarm fidelity to the promise of limiting global warming within 1.5°C. This puts the world on track instead for exceeding this threshold, which would be disastrous.
Global Indian Times: There is less focus, even a push back, against funding and subsidizing green energy projects by conservative/right wing governments especially in Europe. What will be the long-term impact?
Vinod Thomas: The imperative of responding to global warming is nowhere near a winning political issue. For instance, it is not a priority in the upcoming US elections.
Yet an increasing number of people do recognize that the climate is changing, 72% of Americans according to a recent poll. What matters is whether this is viewed as human caused or natural, and hence a priority for policy action. In this sense, only 12% of Republicans and only 59% of Democrats view dealing with global warming as a priority for action.
Populist and nationalist parties, who are climate agnostics, are on the rise in the European Union assembly. Nationalist prime ministers lead Hungary, Italy and Slovakia, and right-wing parties are gaining influence in Germany, France, Spain and The Netherlands. Rising living costs and concerns over immigration are major drivers of votes for right-wing parties. All this makes for resistance against green energy transition. Countries with sizable farming sectors are concerned about rising energy and fertilizer costs. There is no doubt that a right-leaning parliament makes it harder to pass climate policies.
Actions in the rest of this decade are crucial to curtail the rise in emissions and warming. Short term political expediency can have existential climate implications. The way forward would be to generate a groundswell of public opinion in favor of climate action regardless of political affiliation.
Global Indian Times: The inadequate cold chain infrastructure in India leads to a major loss of fruits and vegetables.
Vinod Thomas: Agriculture is every bit central to climate concerns. High-input, high-output agriculture is hurt by climate change even as demands for food and other agricultural products rise. The requirements of climate resilient agriculture are changing but they certainly include climate-resistant varieties, heat-tolerant working conditions, and heat- and water-resistant transportation, including refrigeration and cold storage.
One-quarter to one-third of fruits and vegetables are estimated to be lost due to the lack of refrigeration in India. There needs to be far reaching changes in adaptation to glacier melts in the north of India and to severe storms playing havoc with infrastructure and livelihoods and causing saltwater intrusion in farmland, through storm surges, on the east and west coasts. Changes in the timing and intensity of monsoon rains are adding tremendous uncertainty to food and other agricultural production.
As India’s energy needs grow, climate mitigation calls on renewables to replace indigenous and imported coal, oil, and gas. The country needs to phase out coal, while the current plans are to increase its use. Nuclear energy will likely face opposition. But India can be far more ambitious in solar and wind and in the deployment of electric vehicles.
Global Indian Times: There is more frequent occurrences of natural calamities, the subject of your previous book. For instance, the recent landslide disaster in Wayanad, Kerala. How do you balance economic growth and environmental sustainability?
Vinod Thomas: On July 30, 2024, 570 mm of rainfall fell in the two days leading up to the unprecedented tragedy of landslides in the Wayanad district of Kerala. The villages of Punjirimattom, Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, Meppadi and Kunhome, consisting of tea farms built on steep slopes, had never seen anything like this. The immediate top concern of course is relief and recovery, lives, and livelihoods. But this episode is not a one off, natural event. It has the fingerprints of ecological destruction and climate change all over. Therefore a part of the concern also needs to be about averting similar future catastrophes.
The so-called World Weather Attribution reports analyze the causality of these extreme episodes. Overall, heavy one-day rainfall events have become about 17% more intense in the last 45 years, over a period when the climate has warmed by 0.85°C. Wayanad is no exception to this phenomenon. The intensity of the rains and landslides were exacerbated by climate change.
There is also a huge connection between land cover and land use changes and the landslide risk in areas like Wayanad. Quarrying for building materials and a 2/3 reduction in forest cover over the years have made for increased susceptibility of the slopes to landslides during heavy rains. Back in 2011, the ecologist Madhav Gadgil warned of the price Kerala – and the rest of the Western ghats region in India - would pay for ecological destruction. His report turned out to be prophetic.
Global Indian Times: How can poor countries, mostly bearing the brunt of climate change, receive the needed resources from the rich countries, the biggest source of climate change?
Vinod Thomas: What the US, China and India do on decarbonizing their economies will decide the fate of our planet. I’d like to continue working on how these countries can move the needle on climate action.