Editorial: Anticlimactic intervention

Research presented in the inaugural issue of ADB's Asia-Pacific Climate Report, said that climate change under a high-end emissions scenario could lead to a 16.9 per cent loss in GDP by 2070 across the APAC region, with India set to suffer a 24.7 per cent GDP loss. The report pointed out that rising sea levels and decreasing labour productivity would drive the most significant losses, with lower-income and fragile economies being hit the hardest.

The analysis is in line with the findings of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change 2024 which highlighted a 50% increase in potential labour hours lost to extreme heat since the 1990s. This has caused economic losses to the tune of $141 bn in 2023, which the agricultural space accounting for $71.9 bn in income lost owing to reduced labour capacity under intense heat circumstances. Per ADB analysts, if the climate crisis continues to accelerate, up to 300 million people in the region could be at risk from coastal inundation, and trillions of dollars' worth of coastal assets could face annual damage by 2070. Intensified and more variable rainfall, along with increasingly extreme storms, will lead to more frequent landslides and floods in the region, which will be most pronounced in mountainous and steeply sloped areas, such as the border area of India and China, where landslides may increase by 30 per cent — 70 per cent under 4.7 degrees Celsius of mean global warming.

The release of this report is telling, considering IMD said recently that last month was the warmest October on record in the country in the last 75 years, breaking the previous high of 1951. Increase in temperature has a bearing on the wellbeing of citizens — from 2014 to 2023, nearly 42.7% of India's area under land witnessed extreme drought conditions for at least a month each year, which is double the frequency recorded in the 1950s. Extreme heat is also known to worsen air pollution, which happens to be a major health hazard. In 2021, air pollution in India was responsible for 1.6 mn deaths, primarily on account of exposure to PM2.5.

It’s a global problem as developing Asia accounted for nearly half of all global emissions in 2021, with China accounting for two-thirds and South Asia nearly 20 per cent. Although emissions per person remain far lower than in Europe, Japan and North America, the Asian zones are home to about 70 per cent of the global population. For these emerging economies, there are significant pain points on meeting climate goals. Most countries in the region have ratified treaties on climate change and presented national plans to cut their carbon emissions, but most lack clear road maps to reach “net zero” carbon emissions.

Financing requirements in emerging Asian countries to cope with climate change range from $102 billion to $431 billion per year. That staggeringly exceeds the $34 billion committed to those purposes in 2021-2022. Sabotaging measures toward greater reliance on renewable energy such as solar and wind power, regional governments offered in excess of $600 bn to support fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal in 2022. Fossil fuel subsidies in India hit a record net negative carbon revenue of $58 bn in 2022, as subsidies exceeded carbon pricing revenue. The subsidies make fuels cheaper, discouraging a shift to cleaner energy, a sure-shot recipe for disaster.