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| National climate vulnerability assessment identifies eight eastern states as highly vulnerable, Photo Credit: Pixabay |
New Delhi (Lisbon Times):- The National climate
vulnerability assessment report released today has identified Jharkhand,
Mizoram, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, and West Bengal
as states highly vulnerable to climate change. These states, mostly in the
eastern part of the country, require prioritization of adaptation
interventions, the report pointed out.
The report titled
‘Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India Using a
Common Framework’, which identifies the most vulnerable states and districts in
India with respect to current climate risk and key drivers of vulnerability,
was released by DST Secretary Professor Ashutosh Sharma.
“We
have seen how extreme events are on rise both in terms of their number and
severity. Mapping the parts of India that are vulnerable to such changes will
help initiating climate actions at the ground level. The report should be made
easily accessible to all stakeholders so that it can benefit
climate-vulnerable communities across India through development of better-designed
climate change adaptation projects,” said Secretary Department of Science and
Technology (DST) Professor Ashutosh Sharma. He also suggested that the maps
should be made available through mechanisms like apps to people who need it.
“Assessing
vulnerability was the first step towards assessing climate risk. There are two
other components like Hazard and Exposure that need to be also assessed to
arrive at overall climate risk. DST would take up these assessments in the next
phase along with sectoral vulnerability assessments and assessments at
sub-district levels,” said Dr. Akhilesh Gupta, Head, Climate Change Programme
(CCP), DST.
Prof
N H Ravindranath, retired climate change expert from the Indian Institute of
Science (IISc), who steered the story, explained that the report has helped
identify the most vulnerable states, districts & panchayats and will aid in
prioritizing adaptation investment, developing and implementing adaptation
programs.
Director
of IIT Mandi, Professor Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, and Director of IIT Guwahati T G
Sitharaman hoped that the report will be taken up by the states for initiating
climate action.
Ms.
Corinne Demenge, Head, Swiss Cooperation Office, Embassy of Switzerland in
India, hoped that the assessments will contribute to the development of more
targeted climate change projects and that they will support the implementation
and the potential revisions of the State Action Plans on Climate Change.
“The
assessments can further be used for India’s reporting on the Nationally
Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. And finally, these
assessments will support India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change,” she
added.
A total of 94
representatives from 24 states and 2 Union Territories participated in the
nation-wide exercise jointly supported by the DST and the Swiss Agency for
Development & Cooperation (SDC).
Dr.
Nisha Mendiratta, Associate Head, Climate Change Programme (CCP), DST,
highlighted DST’s initiatives as part of implementation of two national missions
and need for connecting the centre, state, and user community in the
implementation of adaptation programmes.
The
assessments undertaken with the active involvement and participation of States
and Union Territory governments and hands-on training and capacity-building
exercises have identified vulnerable districts. Among all states, Assam, Bihar,
and Jharkhand have over 60% districts in the category of highly vulnerable
districts.
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“Vulnerability
scores in all districts in India lies in a very small range. It shows that all
districts & states are somewhat vulnerable with respect to current climate
risk in India,” Dr. Shyamashree Dasgupta, Professor, IIT Mandi
The
assessment will help Policymakers in initiating appropriate climate
actions. It will also benefit climate-vulnerable communities across India
through the development of better-designed climate change adaptation projects.
Dr.
Anamika Barua, Professor, IIT Guwahati, underlined that this vulnerability
assessment is unique as we use a common framework across the states & union
territory to make them comparable and also because of the active participation
of state & union territory governments.
In a developing a country such as India, vulnerability assessment is considered as an important
exercise to develop suitable adaptation projects and programs. While climate
vulnerability assessments for various states and districts already exist, the
states and districts cannot be compared to each other as the framework used for
assessments are different, thereby limiting decision-making capabilities at the
policy and administrative levels. This necessitated an assessment using a
Common Vulnerability Framework.
Keeping this a requirement in mind, DST and SDC supported the development of a Common
Framework for Vulnerability Assessment for the Himalayan region based on the
definition provided in the latest 5th Assessment
report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [AR5]. The
Common Framework, along with a manual to apply the framework, was developed by
IIT Mandi, IIT Guwahati, and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The
framework was applied to the Indian Himalayan Region, involving all 12 States
(including pre-divided J&K) through the capacity-building process.
The outcome of the exercise undertaken was shared with the Himalayan States, have led to several
positive developments in terms of some of these already prioritizing and
implementing climate change adaptation actions based on these vulnerability assessments.
Based on the positive
feedback received from the states and its usefulness to the Himalayan states
for implementing climate change adaptation actions, it was decided to roll out
the climate vulnerability assessment exercise for the entire country through
capacity building of the States.
The task was assigned
to the same team, which coordinated to carry out a series of training workshops
for the state governments in India towards capacity building for vulnerability
assessment.
DST has been
implementing 2 national missions on climate change as part of the National
Action Plan on Climate Change. These are National Mission for Sustaining the
Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for
Climate Change (NMSKCC). As part of these missions, DST has been supporting the
State Climate Change Cells in 25 States and Union Territories. Besides other
tasks assigned to these State CC Cells, carrying out an assessment of
vulnerability due to climate change at district and sub-district levels has
been their primary responsibility, and the national level vulnerability
assessment an extension of the same.
Full Report: https://dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/Full%20Report%20%281%29.pdf
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