Climate change has an adverse impact right from drought to sea level rise, from extreme heat to melting of glaciers, from groundwater to agriculture and food scarcity, and the major impact on the increase in difficulties faced by underprivileged people and decrease in the water excess. Climate change will lead to 130 million people in poverty over the next 10 years. It could cause over 200 million people to migrate to their own countries by 2050.
Do you want to know how climate change is exacerbating poverty in India?
Let's first understand what climate change means.
1) What is climate change?
Climate change is a change in the earth's normal temperature and rainfall changes. It's a long-term process that requires over hundreds or even millions of years to change. Climate change is a natural change, but since the 1800s, certain inadequate activities by human beings like burning fossil fuels have been causing climate change.
Climate change affects people in various ways: health disorders, relocation due to famine, agricultural reduction, housing, water scarcity, and economic degradation.
a. What Is Water Scarcity?
The word itself says scarcity in water or lack of freshwater resources is known as water scarcity. It means a decrease in water sources to meet the standard water demand. There are two types of water scarcity Physical and Economic water scarcity.
Physical water scarcity occurs when the population's demand exceeds a region's available water resources.
Economical water scarcity occurs when water is sufficient. Still, it is not attainable due to a lack of significant investment in water infrastructure.
b. How does Climate Change Decreases Agricultural Production?
Agricultural production is highly dependent on climate. Increasing carbon dioxide and temperature can increase crop harvest. The temperature changes are essential to realizing the soil moisturization, water supply, nutrients, and other needful aspects. Floods can challenge the farmers and affect the production of food.
c. What is relocating?
Natural disasters like floods, and high sea levels, destroy villages and houses. Landslides and earthquakes make it impossible for people to stay in the coastal region. Hence, the government has the responsibility to ensure people's safeguard. The migration or relocation due to climate change and disaster has risen.
2) How It Is Affecting India?
Climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the world today. And nowhere is this more evident than in India, where rising temperatures and increasingly erratic weather patterns are wreaking havoc on the country's already fragile economy.
According to a new report from the World Bank, climate change could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. The report found that India is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its large population, dependence on agriculture, and limited capacity to adapt.
The effects of climate change are already being felt in India, where droughts have become more frequent and intense, and floods have become more destructive. These extreme weather events devastate India's farmers, who comprise a large percentage of the country's population.
3) What is its impact on poor people?
Climate change exacerbates other poverty-related problems in India, such as water scarcity, food insecurity, and indoor air pollution. As the country continues to suffer from the impacts of climate change, it is clear that the poverty problem in India will only worsen.
Drought, famine, and other natural calamities which occur due to climate change disastrously affects poor people. Climate change is impacting families and communities in villages and developing places, these shifts in climate decrease agricultural production and dry up water resources. It led to the spreading of the disease and economic alterations. Heavy rainfall and cyclones are making people homeless. The severe problem has been faced for years, and it takes a long time for people to return to their everyday lives. After the natural disasters, unfavourable transformations are witnessed.
Conclusion
Now we are familiar with what climate change is, and how it is exacerbating poverty in India. To transform this problem into a solution, effective steps could be taken on an individual level by limiting the use of fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and replacing them with renewable sources of energy. Small changes from now can make big differences in near future.