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Mint
18 hours ago
- Climate
- Mint
The world has already breached a dangerous level of warming, and India isn't prepared
NEW DELHI : Climate Change & You is a fortnightly newsletter written by Bibek Bhattacharya and Sayantan Bera. Subscribe to Mint's newsletters to get them directly in your inbox. Dear reader, As I was writing this newsletter, Mumbai was drowning in record rains. The monsoon set in 8 days early this year, and according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), it is so early that it has already touched Mumbai. In fact, this year the monsoon came to Mumbai two weeks early, within 24 hours of its onset in Kerala. Mumbai certainly wasn't ready for it. In fact, by the morning of 26 May, one of the city's main stations in Colaba registered a record-breaking amount of rainfall—at 295mm—for the month of May. The previous record was set in 1918 – 107 years ago. We will soon know if climate change played a role in both the early onset of monsoon, as well as the rainfall in Mumbai. But what is already clear is that with rising atmospheric heat, monsoon rains will be more erratic and heavier as the years go by, simply because hotter air can hold more moisture, resulting in cloudbursts like the one in Mumbai on Sunday night. Speaking of climate anomalies, April 2025 was the second hottest April on record, after 2024. According to EU's climate monitoring service Copernicus, the global average temperature in April was 1.51 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. This made April the 21st straight month that was 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than pre-industrial times, prompting some scientists to wonder if the world has already crossed the safety limit of 1.5 degrees of warming on a permanent basis. In fact, a new report from the World Meteorological Organization states that, by 2030, the world might experience at least one year that is 2 degrees hotter. If this is true, then this spells very bad news for the planet, as we will see below. STATE OF THE CLIMATE India's unbearable heat is rising The biggest climate threat in India continues to be heat, and the heat risk is rising. According to a recent study by the New Delhi-based climate policy thinktank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), 57% of India's districts are facing high to very high heat hazards. And 76% of India's population lives in these districts. The risk assessment study is based on 34 separate heat indicators from 734 districts across the country. It found that 417 districts are in the high risk zone, while another 201 faced moderate heat hazards. The top ten heat prone states and union territories include Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Uttar Pradesh. Also Read: Remembering the Climate Pope The report, titled How Extreme Heat Is Impacting India, highlighted two important dimensions of rising heat—an increase in very warm nights, and a rise in humid heat. Both of these factors amplify the effect of heat on the human body, and can lead to deadly overheating. According to the study, nearly 70% of the districts recorded an increase of over five extra warm nights per year between 2012 and 2022, as compared with 1982-2011. This is especially true of cities, where the heat island effect caused by highly built-up environments has been boosting warmer nights. For example, Mumbai recorded 15 additional 'very warm' summer nights in the past decade compared with the previous three decades. It is a similar situation for other cities like Jaipur and Chennai. With a 10% rise in relative humidity in north India, drier cities like New Delhi are seeing more humid heat, and high humidity plus heat is a deadly combination for the human body. THE NEWS IN BRIEF -In an incisive and well-researched article,LA Timesclimate reporter Sammy Roth lays out how Warren Buffet's investments for Berkshire have always skewed towards fossil fuels, helping drive planet-heating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. -All eyes are on Brazil, as the country gears up to host a pivotal global climate conference this November. In this interview with Hindustan Times, COP30 president designate André Aranha Correa do Lago lays out his priorities for the summit. -In this opinion piece, noted climate skeptic and contrarian Bjorn Lomberg questions if renewable energy really is cheaper than fossil fuels. CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER Sea-level rise threatening India's coasts I started this newsletter by noting that the world has already experienced 21 consecutive months of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global heating. Over the past decade, the average heating was of 1.2 degrees, but it seems like we are steadily moving into a much hotter world, sooner than many had predicted. In fact, it is clear that the goal to keep warming to under 1.5 degrees by 2100 is already unreachable, with many climate scientists predicting a catastrophic rise of 2.5-3 degrees of heat this century. This will have serious consequences. According to a major climate science study published earlier in May, sea-level rise may become unstoppable once the world hits 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming permanently. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, states that even at current levels of heating, the global sea-level is set to rise by 1cm a year by 2100. Given that we are on course to nearly 3 degrees of heating, this would be devastating for the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, leading to their collapse and a sea level rise of 12m. To put that into perspective, about 230 million people around the world's coastal areas live 1m above the current sea level, while 1 billion people live within 10m above sea level. In India, at least 63 million people (6% of the total population) live within 10m of seacoasts, the second highest in the world after China. For India, this number is projected to grow to 216 million people (10.3% of the total population) by 2060. With sea-level rise a given, there's an urgent need to adapt to this new reality. Which leads us to the next section. KNOW YOUR JARGON Climate Migration With India facing multiple climate threats, the one major change that will be triggered by rising climate hazards is migration. Whether it is sea-level rise, or other impacts like water stress, low crop yields, ecosystem loss and droughts, more and more Indians—mostly the poorest—will be forced to become climate refugees in their own country. According to a 2020 report by Climate Action Network South Asia, about 14 million Indians were forced to migrate due to climate change the absence of drastic climate mitigation measures, the report forecasts over 45 million migrants by 2050. This is a reality that India urgently needs to plan for. Also Read: A deep dive into India's climate crisis Among the many measures that experts urge countries to make is to enhance resilience among vulnerable communities, ensure just transition for agriculture workers, provide universal access to social protection measures, guarantee decent work by creating job opportunities and have a plan for safe, orderly and dignified movement during forced migrations. This will require a combination of international finance access, and generating local finances by progressive taxation of fossil fuel companies, and even international cooperation with our neighbouring countries. India is badly lagging in all of these areas, though some initial measures have been taken. Last year, the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) set up a three-year project to increase resilience measures for climate vulnerable communities in Odisha and Telangana. This programme offers alternatives to migration, though it is also mandated to provide information for safe migration. But there is no actual policy addressing migration, apart from a private member's bill on climate migrants' protection and rehabilitation from an Assam Congress MP, which has been gathering dust since 2022. PRIME NUMBER 6.7 In 2024, the world lost 6.7 million hectares of primary forests, according to new data from the University of Maryland's GLAD Lab. The data, hosted on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform, shows that this is nearly twice as much forest loss as in 2023. To put it another way, in 2024, the world lost forests at the rate of 18 football fields every minute. The data also revealed a disturbing new trend—loss due to fires. In 2024, nearly half the forest loss was due to fires, a huge jump from previous years, when agriculture was the primary driver of these losses. These fires emitted 4.1 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, four times more than emissions from all air travel in 2023. The loss of forest cover is a major driver of climate change, as without humid primary forests, land on the planet loses its capacity to store carbon. Forests are the most effective carbon capture and storage tech we know of. Between 2002 and 2024, the world lost 83 million hectares of primary forests, or 8.1% of forest cover. According to the Global Forest Watch data, India has lost 348 kilohectares (1kha=1,000 hectares) of primary forests in 2002-2024, about 15% of the country's entire tree cover. BOOK OF THE MONTH Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer The human urge to view nature as something that is passive is rather strong, which shows itself in the seemingly carefree way in which we plunder it for our gains. But as Jeff Vandermeer's award-winning weird fiction novel Annihilation shows, this couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, natural processes are gigantic and care not a whit for human claims of mastery. If we cannot adapt our ways to the laws of nature, we will be overwhelmed, subsumed and, well, annihilated. In the novel this process takes the form of a seemingly alien entity that creates a human free zone in south Florida, called Area X. As Area X expands, all human signs are obliterated, and people caught inside it are changed into inhuman beings, monstrous to us, but utterly harmonious with nature. The first of an acclaimed trilogy, Annihilation is a must-read for its imaginative and unsettling depiction of nature that doesn't care about human beings. So that's it for this edition of Climate Change & You, dear reader. Sayantan will be back in a fortnight with the next instalment. Also Read: When winter melts into summer
Time of India
2 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Low quality drug delays Telangana's annual deworming campaign
Hyderabad: With just two months left till the state's annual deworming campaign begins, officials of the Telangana Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Cooperation (TGMSIDS) have handed the task of manufacturing over 1 crore doses of albendazole tablets by June-end to a new company. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now While the campaign was rescheduled to be conducted in Aug, the date is yet to be finalised. Telangana postponed its national deworming day campaign in Feb this year after the Union health ministry's Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) flagged nearly two dozen batches of albendazole tablets as not of standard quality (NSQ) in consecutive monthly reports of March and April. Acknowledging the violation, an official from the Drug Control Administration (DCA) said that the Madhya Pradesh-based manufacturing company tasked with manufacturing these tablets was recently blacklisted. "A company is blacklisted if there are three continuous NSQs. We filed a case against the manufacturer due to repeated violations. A chargesheet will be filed soon, and further investigation will be conducted. " Speaking to TOI, an official from the TGMSIDS said that the order to manufacture the albendazole tablets was given to the concerned company in Nov last year, and the delivery was due for Jan 2025. "The usual time for delivery is 60 days. Of the total 25 batches that the company delivered, as many as 19 were found NSQ. This is why we could not conduct the deworming campaign in Feb as there was a shortage of these tablets. While many states conduct the campaign in two rounds (Feb and Aug), we only follow the Feb cycle as the malnutrition and worm infestation in children in the state does not prevail to the extent it was 20 years ago," explained the official. In March this year, the TGMSIDS officials gave the order to produce 1 crore albendazole tablets to a New Delhi-based company with its factory based in Haryana. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The manufacturer has been asked to produce 1.3 lakh albendazole tablets daily to meet the target in time. "As many as 16 lakh tablets have been supplied so far," said the official. Albendazole is an anti-parasitic tablet commonly used to treat infections caused by worms, such as tapeworm, ringworm, and others in children. The tablets are distributed every year to children in govt schools and pregnant mothers by the auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) on National Deworming Day in Feb to improve children's overall health, nutritional status, and educational outcomes. A total of 1.12 crore albendazole tablets were distributed by the officials in 2024 to children aged between 1 and 19 years, including those in govt schools, and others. Of this, 1.42 lakh tablets were also provided to pregnant women in the state.
Qatar Tribune
2 days ago
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
No imports needed: India wheat harvest defies speculation
Agencies A strong wheat harvest in India is rapidly replenishing stocks, meaning the country will be able to meet domestic demand without imports this year, contrary to market talk that it would need overseas supplies, and a potential drag on global prices. India banned exports of the staple in 2022 and extended the prohibition as extreme heat shriveled crops again in 2023 and 2024, draining reserves, pushing prices to record highs and fuelling speculation it would need imports for the first time since 2017. But things are improving for the world's No.2 wheat producer, with early state inventory purchases signaling that this year's crop is about 4 million tons bigger than last year's, six industry and government officials said. 'After barely scraping through without imports in recent years, the country finally seems to be out of the woods and free from the fear of having to import wheat,' said Amit Takkar, chief of New Delhi-based farm consultancy Conifer Commodities. The Food Corporation of India, the state stockpiler, has bought 29.7 million metric tons of new-season wheat from domestic farmers - the most in four years - after missing procurement targets for three consecutive years. FCI's total wheat purchases could rise to 32 million-32.5 million tons this year, food minister Pralhad Joshi said earlier this month, adding to the 11.8 million tons in stock at the start of the marketing year on April 1. That stockpile of roughly 44 million tons would significantly exceed FCI's annual requirement of 18.4 million tons to run the world's largest food welfare program, which provides free grain to nearly 800 million people. FCI's surging wheat stocks are sufficient to dispel the prospect of imports that has kept the global trading community guessing, the six industry and government officials said. With the world's second-largest wheat consumer not needing imports, global prices Wv1 for the grain are likely to come under pressure, as output remains strong in top exporting countries such as Argentina, Australia and Canada, while import demand from top consumer China has weakened. Global wheat prices have more than halved from the record highs of 2022, sliding earlier this month to their lowest level in nearly five years. Better weather, higher-yielding climate-resilient seeds, and adequate soil moisture from last year's plentiful monsoon rains helped improve this year's wheat output in India. A nearly 15% rise in wheat prices over the past year - driven by consecutive poor harvests - also encouraged farmers to switch to wheat. Farmers in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, known for premium wheat that goes into pizzas and pastas, said crop yields were higher this year thanks to a milder March. 'The weather was better this year compared to last year,' said farmer Sunil Dubey, as he steered his tractor trolley brimming with brown sacks of wheat into the dusty, bustling wholesale market of Indore.
Kuwait Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Kuwait Times
No imports needed: India wheat harvest defies speculation
INDORE: A strong wheat harvest in India is rapidly replenishing stocks, meaning the country will be able to meet domestic demand without imports this year, contrary to market talk that it would need overseas supplies, and a potential drag on global prices. India banned exports of the staple in 2022 and extended the prohibition as extreme heat shriveled crops again in 2023 and 2024, draining reserves, pushing prices to record highs and fuelling speculation it would need imports for the first time since 2017. But things are improving for the world's No.2 wheat producer, with early state inventory purchases signaling that this year's crop is about 4 million tons bigger than last year's, six industry and government officials said. 'After barely scraping through without imports in recent years, the country finally seems to be out of the woods and free from the fear of having to import wheat,' said Amit Takkar, chief of New Delhi-based farm consultancy Conifer Commodities. The Food Corporation of India, the state stockpiler, has bought 29.7 million metric tons of new-season wheat from domestic farmers - the most in four years - after missing procurement targets for three consecutive years. FCI's total wheat purchases could rise to 32 million-32.5 million tons this year, food minister Pralhad Joshi said earlier this month, adding to the 11.8 million tons in stock at the start of the marketing year on April 1. That stockpile of roughly 44 million tons would significantly exceed FCI's annual requirement of 18.4 million tons to run the world's largest food welfare program, which provides free grain to nearly 800 million people. FCI's surging wheat stocks are sufficient to dispel the prospect of imports that has kept the global trading community guessing, the six industry and government officials said. With the world's second-largest wheat consumer not needing imports, global prices Wv1 for the grain are likely to come under pressure, as output remains strong in top exporting countries such as Argentina, Australia and Canada, while import demand from top consumer China has weakened. Global wheat prices have more than halved from the record highs of 2022, sliding earlier this month to their lowest level in nearly five years. Imports averted Better weather, higher-yielding climate-resilient seeds, and adequate soil moisture from last year's plentiful monsoon rains helped improve this year's wheat output in India. A nearly 15% rise in wheat prices over the past year - driven by consecutive poor harvests - also encouraged farmers to switch to wheat. Farmers in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, known for premium wheat that goes into pizzas and pastas, said crop yields were higher this year thanks to a milder March. 'The weather was better this year compared to last year,' said farmer Sunil Dubey, as he steered his tractor trolley brimming with brown sacks of wheat into the dusty, bustling wholesale market of Indore. Dubey and many other farmers have sold their entire harvest to the FCI this year. FCI's robust stockbuilding means that it can release wheat onto the open market in the event of a domestic price spike. In the fiscal year to March 2024, the FCI released more than 10 million tons of wheat into the open market - a record - to tame rising prices. However, lower inventories prevented it from selling large quantities the following year, and Indian wheat prices jumped to an all-time high in early 2025. The government is now far more confident about domestic wheat supplies and prices. India has no plans to lower or remove the 40 percent wheat import tax, nor is it considering importing wheat through diplomatic channels, as it had discussed earlier, said a senior government official. 'Because of good production and procurement, we have ample quantities in hand,' said the official who declined to be named, citing government rules. 'There will not be any imports.' At the same time, India is not considering allowing exports, the official said, preferring instead to build stocks. The government has forecast this year's output at a record 115.4 million tons, although the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India has pegged production at 109.63 million tons. Both estimates were made before the April harvest. In 2024, India produced 105.85 million tons of wheat, according to the flour millers' body, below the government's 113.29 million tons figure. Trade and industry officials have in recent years said the farm ministry's wheat output estimates are overly optimistic and create market uncertainty. 'Despite our conservative estimate, we know that production will be around 4 million tons higher than last year,' said Navneet Chitlangia, president of the Roller Flour Millers Federation of India. - Reuters
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Must move savings into productive assets for 8-8.5% growth: RBI MPC member Nagesh Kumar
India faces a 'major issue' of domestic savings not getting 'translated' into productive assets, according to Nagesh Kumar, director of New Delhi-based Institute for Studies in Industrial Development and one of the three external members on the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee. Speaking at a panel discussion on Thursday at the Confederation of Indian Industry's Annual Business Summit, Kumar said that without more investment in productive assets, India will not be able to increase its growth rate to 8-8.5 per cent from 6-6.5 per cent. India's GDP growth rate in 2024-25 is seen at 6.5 per cent, the lowest in four years, as per the statistics ministry's second advance estimate, released in February 2025. The ministry will announce the provisional estimate for 2024-25 GDP on Friday. For the current fiscal, the finance ministry has forecast a growth rate of 6.3-6.8 per cent, while the RBI has projected an expansion of 6.5 per cent. Kumar argued for the re-direction of Indian households' savings from speculative assets into productive investments. Fellow panelist Sudipto Mundle, chairman of the board of governors of Centre for Development Studies, also voiced his concerns about households' financial savings, which he said had to be increased. As per latest data, net financial savings of Indian households edged up to 5.2 per cent of GDP in 2023-24 from a multi-decade low of 5.0 per cent in 2022-23. Skill gap Mundle also warned of a skill gap in India's work force and said the government, in the short term, had no option but to encourage the growth of labour-intensive industries. In the long-term, the country faced the challenge of staying competitive in the face of transformations caused by generative artificial intelligence. To tackle this challenge, Mundle called for skilling the workforce and putting 'very serious' investment in research and development. Ipsita Dasgupta, managing director of HP India and another member on the CII panel, echoed Mundle's views, going on to warn that 90 per cent of the 15 lakh engineers that graduate in India every year 'are unemployable as engineers'. 'We are the country that is actually going to power the rest of the aging world. And we need to seriously address the fact that there is 200-250 million students today who need to be employable, who need to be able to find work, and who need to fit into the global economy,' Dasgupta said.
