More than 3,200 people dead.
Around 2 million hectares of cropland damaged.
And extreme weather events – such as heatwaves and intense rainfall – occurring on almost every day in the first nine months of 2023, thanks to record-breaking temperatures and rainfall.
These are some of the impacts and losses that India witnessed in 2023, as per the State of India’s Environment 2024 report released by the Centre for Science and Environment on February 29.
Warming planet, extreme weather
The Centre (CSE, a public interest research organisation based in New Delhi) has released State of India’s Environment reports every year since 2014. The reports, a compilation or survey of the status of India’s environment, are based on several sources of data – from government departments, surveys, reports and databases, to international reports, and sometimes, data generated by the CSE as well.
This year’s report, accessed by The Wire, covers a range of topics from extreme weather events to antimicrobial resistance and pollution. The world is steadily warming, the report noted. Global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 (till October) was about 1.4 Degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900 average). As per science, the world has to limit warming to 1.5°C or 2°C by urgently reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In terms of regions, Asia is warming up faster than the rest of the world. The warming trend in Asia in 1991-2022 was almost double the warming trend during the 1961-1990 period, and much larger than the trends of the previous 30 years, per data in the State of the Climate in Asia 2022 report published by World Meteorological Organization that the 2024 CSE report quotes.
One of the State of India’s Environment 2024 report’s main take-homes is the impact of extreme weather events caused by climate change on India’s environment, its people and some livelihoods. Extreme weather events broke several records in India last year, per the report. Heat extremes were many. India witnessed its warmest ever August and September in 122 years, as per the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). The February of 2023 was also the warmest ever February on record since 1901. On September 12 last year, Srinagar recorded its second hottest day in September in 132 years.
Cyclone Biparjoy, as it was developing over the Arabian Sea on the afternoon of June 8, 2023. Photo: Screenshot from windy.com
In many areas, rainfall decreased. South India, for instance, received its lowest June rainfall in 122 years according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) due to several factors including the interactions of wind systems and cyclone Biparjoy, an extremely severe cyclone that ‘stole’ the monsoon in some parts of India, while bringing heat waves simultaneously to other regions. Central India received the lowest rainfall ever since 1901, and India’s northwest experienced a 76% rainfall deficit.
Per the report, India experienced extreme weather events on 296 of the 334 days from January 1 to November 30, 2023. All 36 states and union territories witnessed such events.
Central India – comprising the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Odisha – recorded extreme weather events on 218 of the 334 days. Madhya Pradesh fared the worst, with extreme weather events on 140 of the 334 days, per the CSE 2024 report. India’s northwest (including states such as Uttarakhand and Rajasthan) recorded extreme weather events on 242 days. Himachal Pradesh was the worst hit, with events on 143 days. The east and northeastern region witnessed 217 days of extreme weather events, with Assam being the worst hit (it witnessed extreme weather events on 112 days). In southern India – which experienced extreme weather on 200 days – Kerala was the worst hit, having witnessed extreme weather events on 114 of 334 days.
Deaths and damages
Across India, the events claimed the lives of 3,208 people from January 1 to November 30, 2023, per the report. Most of the deaths (2,594) occurred during the monsoon, between June and September 2023. All 122 days during this time witnessed extreme weather events, and this occurred across all 36 states and Union territories.
The extreme weather events last year damaged a whopping 2.09 million hectares of crop area. Again, extreme weather events during the monsoon (June to September) did the most damage to crops: around 8 lakh hectares of cropland was affected during this time.
And based on data from the National Crime Records Bureau (as of 2022), farmer suicides are only increasing, per the report.
“Despite the Centre’s promise of doubling farmer income, 2022 saw the highest number of suicides in the agriculture sector in the past five years,” the report read. “Every hour that year, a farmer or farm labourer committed suicide.”
Uttar Pradesh alone witnessed a shocking 346% increase in farmer or cultivator suicides between 2021 and 2022.
Also read: Marathwada: 1,088 Farmers Died by Suicide in 2023, 65 More Than 2022
Green crimes, forest diversions
In India, while the number of environmental crimes decreased by 18% between 2021 and 2022, courts are disposing of cases at a significantly lower rate than at which new cases are being recorded – leading to pile-ups and delays, per the report. In 2022, 94% of the reported environmental crimes occurred in just five states: Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Kerala, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.
The report compiled data from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change as of August 7 last year, and found that 17,381 hectares of forestland was diverted for non-forestry purposes in 2022-23, under the Forest (Conservation) Act (FCA), 1980. This is a rise of 3.5%, than when compared to 2021-22. More than half (65%) of these diversions occurred in the name of road construction, mining activities and transmission line development. This is before the implementation of the latest amendment to the FCA, that will among other things also take away the protection that the Act offers to deemed forests and community forests as of now. Once the new Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 – as the FCA will now be called – comes into force, experts have already raised concerns that more forestland could be diverted for non-forestry use. However, a recent interim order by the Supreme Court that seeks to prevent the diversion of such forests has brought hope to conservationists.
Of the 36 Indian states and UTs, 32 diverted forestland for non-forestry use. Almost 50% of these diversions were reported from just five states: Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana and Gujarat witnessed the highest area of forestland being diverted between 2014-15 and 2022-23.
Another threat to forests are large forest fires. Per the report, the frequency of large forest fires in India has increased between 2021-22 and 2022-23.
File image of a forest fire being extinguished by bush beating, Dudhwa National Park, Uttar Pradesh. Photo: UP forest department
Environmental pollution and public health
Based on data collated from multiple sources, the report found that 13 states and union territories including Delhi have witnessed a rise in acute respiratory infections in children between 2015-16 and 2019-21. Per the report, fine particulate matter (or PM 2.5, small inhalable particles of carbon produced by the burning of fossil fuels) is the “top health threat” in India, and reduces life expectancy of children by over five years. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh account for 64% of the total deaths associated with air pollution in children under five.
“Doctors say that Delhi and many cities in India are witnessing a spike in cases of children and non-smoking adults with black deposits in lungs,” the report read. “These deposits cannot be removed and damage the lungs. It is a criminal oversight to ignore this health emergency.”
Rural areas aren’t without their shares of woes. India has a shortage of both rural health centers and human resources to run them, per government data analysed in the report. India needs at least 36% more Community Health Centres (CHCs), which are the first level of health infrastructure where rural population get access to specialist doctors and radiographers, per the report.
Local and regional, to global
Globally, 109 nations suffered losses due to extreme weather events in 2023. And together, the events affected 60.11 million people worldwide. Africa, Europe and West Asia reported 84% of the 21,173 deaths caused by extreme events during the year, per the report.
Without the ability to access insurance, people across the world are exposed to “drastic” financial losses due to climate change. Climate change has led to a rise in temperatures and the world is facing more frequent and intense heat waves, and glaciers are melting at double the speed than they did twenty years ago. As much as half the world’s glaciers will be lost by 2100. More than half of the world’s major drinking water aquifers are depleting faster than they can be replenished; wild species are becoming extinct faster too.
Even space hasn’t been spared: 130 million pieces of satellite debris are circling around in space, and they pose a threat to functioning satellites.
CSE director general Sunita Narain said that 2023-24 was a year of “polycrisis” – “a period when we are losing our many, multiple conflicts, among them our war with nature; our war with humans (read Ukraine and Gaza); and our war of control over minerals and technology (where China plays a significant role),” while speaking at the release of the report, as per a press release.
“We must reinvent the narrative of environmental management,” she said. “Technological fixes will not be enough. We will need to strengthen our regulatory institutions.”
