The 2024 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference, usually referred to as Conference of Parties 29 (COP29), will probably be the final opportunity for the international community to accelerate action to tackle the climate crisis. COP29 will bring together leaders of 197 countries, and the European Union, as also business and civil society worthies, who will, hopefully, over the twelve days from 11 November to 22 November, hammer out workable solutions to this most pressing issue of our time. However, if the outcome of previous editions of COP are any guide, a surfeit of verbiage, rather than concrete action, or even a unanimous action plan is more likely.

COP28 held in NovemberDecember 2023 in UAE, was attended by almost 200 countries, represented by more than 150 Presidents/Prime Ministers, as also national delegations, civil society, business, Indigenous Peoples, youth, philanthropy, and international organizations. After noting that progress was too slow across all areas of climate action ~ from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthening resilience to a changing climate, to getting the financial and technological support to vulnerable nations ~ COP28 issued a call to governments to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy ~ in their next round of climate commitments.

Earlier COPs were also high on rhetoric but low on commitment ~ most countries agreed to achieve climate control targets by 2050, while India proposed to do so by 2070. Consensus emerged to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, preferably to limit the increase to 1.5°C. Significantly, no timelines were prescribed, and by last year the average temperature had increased by 1.64º Celsius. Also, everyone looked to set goals, far in the future, when none of the attendees could be held responsible for their misleading promises.

Glaring anomalies were noticed; COP26 focussed on reducing dependence on fossil fuels but the main sponsors of the Conference, like that of COP 25, were fossil fuel and finance companies! This year’s COP comes amidst alarming signs of climate change, with anomalous climate events being observed the world over: what else could explain 40º Celsius temperatures in the snowbound plains of Siberia and Canada?

Or snowfall in the Sahara Desert? Or floods in the Arabian Desert? With global temperatures hitting record highs, and extreme weather events affecting people around the globe, no region ~ from snow-capped Antarctica to the deserts of Sahara ~ has been left unaffected. Increasing occurrences of such Ripleysque events have the unmistakable imprimatur of climate change ~ which all Governments are at pains to deny. The most Government spokesmen will concede is that the earth may experience climate change by the end of the twenty-first century, to counter which, they have laid down elaborate goals for 2050 or 2070. Paradoxically, frequent extreme climate events are visible to everyone ~ except politicians looking only at vote-banks.

The effect of climate change on the health of people has been documented by successive editions of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, since 2016, the year the Paris Agreement on Climate Change came into force. The 2024 Edition of Countdown makes extremely disturbing reading:

* Ten of the fifteen indicators monitoring climate change related health hazards, exposures, and impacts, reached new record levels in 2023.

* Compared with the 1990s, heatted mortality of people older than 65 years increased by 167 per cent.

* Heat exposure increasingly affects physical activity and sleep quality, adversely impacting physical and mental health of people.

* Between 1961–90 and 2014–23, 61 per cent of the global land area saw an increase in the number of days of extreme precipitation which increased the risk of flooding, infectious disease spread, and water contamination.

* In parallel, 48 per cent of the global land area was affected by at least 1 month of extreme drought in 2023.

* The increase in drought and heatwave events since 1981–2010 resulted in 151 million more people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity across 124 countries.

* The hotter and drier weather conditions increasingly favoured the occurrence of sand and dust storms. This weather-environmental phenomenon contributed to a 31 per cent increase in the number of people exposed to dangerously high particulate matter concentrations between 2003–07 and 2018–22.

* Changing precipitation patterns and rising temperatures have facilitated transmission of deadly infectious diseases such as dengue, malaria, West Nile virus-related illness, and vibriosis.

* Climate change adversely affected social and economic conditions on which health and well-being depend. The average annual economic losses from weather-related extreme events increased to US$227 billion between 2019–23.

* Extreme weather and climate change-related health impacts are also affecting labour productivity, with heat exposure leading to a record high loss of 512 billion potential labour hours in 2023, worth $835 billion.

* Only 68 per cent of countries reported high-to-very high implementation of legally mandated health emergency management capacities in 2023, of which just 11 per cent were low HDI countries.

* Moreover, only 35 percent of countries were equipped with health early warning systems for heat-related illness.

* Global energy-related CO2 emissions reached an all-time high in 2023.

* Financed by windfall profits from high energy prices, oil and gas companies are further expanding their fossil fuel production plans. As of March, 2024, the 114 largest oil and gas companies were on track to exceed emissions consistent with 1·5°C of heating by 189% in 2040, threatening people’s health and survival.

* The burning of polluting biomass e.g., wood or dung, still accounts for 92 per cent of the energy used in the homes of people in low HDI countries. This persistent burning of fossil fuel and biomass led to at least 3·33 million deaths from outdoor fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution globally in 2021 and the domestic use of dirty solid fuels caused 2·3 million deaths from indoor air pollution in 2020.

* Compounding the growth in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, almost 182 million hectares of forests were lost between 2016 and 2022, reducing the world’s natural capacity to capture atmospheric CO2. Unfortunately, all the above warning signs were noticed in India also. We had elevated temperatures and heatwaves, as also an extended monsoon season and widespread floods. Then, while Himalayan glaciers were in retreat, we had a record number of wildfires in the pristine forests of Uttarakhand, and mudslides in picturesque Kerala. These adverse climatic events led to the loss of a large number of lives and destruction of precious infrastructure.

As pointed out in ‘Climate Change for Us’ (2 September 2022), insulation from the Asian landmass, by oceans in the south and the Himalayas in the north, protects us ~ though not totally ~ from depredations of our neighbours. An honest effort to limit pollution and overexploitation of natural resources ~ the major causes of climate change ~ could yield immediate results. Thus, we have two alternatives; either, go with the mainstream and make hollow promises with no intention of fulfilling them, or try and limit climate change for our country. A short-sighted vision of development, through quick economic progress, by increasing manufacturing activity and tourism, has proved to be the trigger for climate change, particularly in the hill States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Most of the residents, looking at long-awaited prosperity are unconcerned ~ even runaway forest fires cannot quench their enthusiasm for ‘development.’ The recently tabled 135th Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment Forest and Climate Change, took serious note of environmental destruction of the Himalayan ecosystem, but on a practical level, environmental concerns are always put on the backburner, by creating a sham progress vs. environment debate. The current, unstated Government policy is of not discouraging environmental transgressions, so much so, that if an environmental rule or law stands in the way of Ease of Doing Business, the law is often changed.

Examples are numerous: Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; Wildlife Protection Act, 1972; Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Indian Forest Act, 1927, were amended, as also the Environment Impact Notification and the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification. Mankind can exist only by preserving the environment. As Michael Crichton wrote: “You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity… Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-yearsold… In the thinking of the human being, a hundred years is a long time, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us” (Jurassic Park).

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)