World Bank says India in for big climate change

DNA India , Thursday, June 20, 2013
Correspondent :
Global warming could lead to more droughts, water scarcity, extremely hot summer, severe flooding, and poor food production in South-Asia, including India, a World Bank report said on Wednesday.

Mumbai and Kolkata will see a “rise in the sea level, tropical cyclones and riverine flooding”. Water scarcity will plague the Western Ghats.

There will be “increased droughts over north-western India, Pakistan and Afghanistan”. If there would be “unprecedented” hot summers, there would also be “extremely wet monsoons”.

“An extremely wet monsoon that at present has a chance of occurring only once in 100 years is projected to occur every 10 years by the end of this century,” the report said. It also projected a rise in severe floods and “severe tropical cyclone impact” within the next 25 years.

Muthukumar S Mani, World Bank’s senior environmental economist, released the report in the national capital here. “What has happened in Uttarakhand is tragic but there is no science right now through which one can link that to climate change. But due to climate change such unusual events would become normal.”

Onno Ruhl, World Bank’s country director, said what is more worrying is “climate change would hit the poor hardest”. He said what is needed for India is “sustainable development”, renewable energies, improved water management among others.

The report estimates that by 2050s, with a temperature increase of 2-2.5°C, water for agriculture in the river basins of the Indus, the Ganga and the Brahmaputra will reduce. A rise of 2°C in global temperature would mean India’s crop yield would go down significantly by the 2040s. (With agency inputs)

 
SOURCE : http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1850423/report-world-bank-says-india-in-for-big-climate-change
 


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