Annual mean surface air temp to rise by 1.7 deg C by 2030s: Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar

Thursday, 6 August: A government study has projected a rise in the annual mean surface air temperature in India by 1.7 degrees Celsius by 2030s, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said that a scientific study to assess the impact of climate change had been undertaken and a report titled ‘Climate change in India: 4×4 assessment – a sectoral and regional analysis for 2030s’ was published by the government in 2010.

“The report has assessed impacts of climate change on four key sectors of Indian economy – agriculture, water, natural ecosystems and biodiversity and health in four climate sensitive regions of India – Himalayan region, Western Ghats, the coastal area and the North East region.

“As per the report, the annual mean surface air temperature is projected to rise by 1.7 degrees Celsius and 2 degrees Celsius by 2030s,” Javadekar said.

He said that the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published in 2014 highlights that the mean surface temperature of the globe has risen by 0.85 degree Celsius over the period of 1880 to 2012.

In line with rising temperature across the globe, all India mean temperature has rise by nearly 0.6 degree Celsius over the last 110 years.

Further a report entitled ‘Climate change a risk assessment’ released by UK Foreign and Commonwealth office states that the probability of exposed individuals experiencing such conditions in a give year starts to become significant for a global temperature rise of around 5 degrees Celsius and could exceed 50 per cent for a global temperature rise of around 7 degrees Celsius in hot areas such as Northern India, South Eastern China and South Eastern US, Javadekar said.

He said that the government has released the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) which has eight missions – national water mission, national mission on sustaining the Himalayan ecosystem, green India Mission, National Mission on sustainable agriculture focus on adaptation measures for reducing and managing the risk of climate change including rise in temperatures.

Replying to another question, Javadekar said there is no study reported so far, which supports the fact that many type of instances similar to natural calamities are occurring in the Himalayan region due to global warming.

He said for monitoring and prediction of extreme weather events over the Himalayan region, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has established centres in Srinagar, Shimla, Dehradun, Gangtok, Guwahati and Agartala for forecast of natural calamities like heavy rainfall, snowfall and thunderstorm.

He said that Earth System Science Organisation has also established a network of various observatories while IMD has set up 24×7 weather monitoring and forecasting system for providing weather facilities to defence personnel by establishing specialised observatories in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir.

Javadekar said that although the government has not constituted a group of experts to study the incidents occurring in the Himalayan region, his Ministry has launched the Indian Network of Climate Change Assessment which has been conceptualised as a network based scientific programme designed to assess the drivers and implications of climate change.

Replying to another question, he said, no specific study on deterioration of seashore and beaches has been conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

“However CPCB is monitoring creeks and seashore water including beaches at 41 locations. The water quality data indicate that values of parameters like biochemical oxygen demand, total coliform, feacal coliform and dissolved oxygen does not confirm to the prescribed norms at many monitored locations,” he said.

PTI