The single most important influence on earth’s environment is climate, consisting of long- term weather patterns over large geographical areas. Climate is particularly an important aspect of sustainability and one that is susceptible to adverse influences by humans, such as emissions of greenhouse gases. Although earth’s environment is huge and has an enormous ability to resist and correct for detrimental changes, yet, it is apparent that human activities are reaching a point where they are adversely affecting the climate, thus paving way to climate change.
Climate change is a global environmental problem which has been receiving intense political and social attention, both at domestic and international levels. The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change or UNFCC defines climate change as, "the change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activities that alters the composition of global atmosphere. "Major characteristics of climate change include:-
* Rise in average global temperature.
* Melting of ice caps, glaciers and reduced snow cover.
* Changes in precipitation.
* Increase in ocean temperature and ocean acidity due to absorption of heat and CO2 from atmosphere.
* Rise in sea level.
Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and petroleum has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2.To a lesser extent, the clearing of land for agriculture, industry and other human activities have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases. Based on the evidences about past changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and atmospheric temperature, most climate scientists believe that increased inputs of CO2 and green house gases from anthropogenic activities enhance the natural green house effect leading to global warming.
In Kashmir, the climate change can be exemplified as follows:-
• Winter duration extended from 03 months to around 08 months, eating up 45 days of autumn, 50 days of spring. You will agree that last year winter started on 15th October and we witnessed minus temperatures from first week of November which continued till March 14, the day temperature recorded was minus 2 degree centigrade. This when assessed with the behavior of winters of the last three years, can we not then safely` conclude that ‘CHILAI – KALAN’ which usually commences from December 21st and concludes on February 28th advanced its arrival by 05 weeks and extended its stay by 03 weeks? This change in climate has proven disastrous for agriculture, horticulture, floriculture and pollination processes which ultimately will result in drought, famines resulting in inflation.
• Changing weather patterns e.g., sunshine in the morning hours and incessant rains in the late afternoon.
• Post blossoming of tulips
• Water levels recede during winters which reduce the generating capacity of hydro-power projects to almost 33% capacity. We call it lean period which lasts for about 03 months ,but now the lean period had extended to 05 months. Visualize the loss to gross GDP on account of losing 67% generation for at least 05 months.
You will agree that the meteorological department in future may have to reconsider the nomenclature of climatic seasons in Kashmir i.e., we may have only 3 seasons viz summer, autumn and winter .
The efforts needed to address the climate problems include mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions on one hand and building of adaptive capacities on the other hand in the developing countries to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change. Mitigation measures include control on the processes, which are responsible for climate change in the region. The diminution of greenhouse gas emissions can minimize the impact of climate change like global warming, melting of the glaciers, flooding of rivers and habitat degradation. Policy instruments could recommend incentives for producers and consumers to significantly invest in products, technologies and processes which emit less greenhouse gases. Without new mitigation policies, global greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase over the coming decades and beyond. Rapid world-wide investments and deployment of mitigation technologies, as well as research into new energy sources will be necessary to achieve a stabilization of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Improved efficient physical infrastructure can offer some protection against phenomenon associated with climate change such as floods, extreme weather events or coastal erosion. A switch to new crops, seeds and agricultural practices can moderate the impacts of changes in temperature and water availability for agriculture. Education, training, improved weather cum flood forecasting and efficient communication can certainly prove beneficial in yielding positive results to monitor climate change.
The author is doing PG Environmental Science at University of Kashmir
