‘Over 1.3 lakh deaths projected due to climate change in India’

New Delhi : An Oxford University study has projected more than 1.30 lakh climate change-related deaths in India due to changes in food production methods, Lok Sabha was informed today.

“The study conducted by the University of Oxford on ‘global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change a modelling study’…

“…projected 1.36 lakh expected climate related deaths in India due to changes in food production based on probabilistic estimates,” Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave said in a written reply.

He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has published a book titled “quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s in 2014.

“It reported that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause increase in deaths due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress,” Dave said.

He said that his ministry published a report titled ‘climate change in India a 4X4 assessment – a sectoral and regional analysis for 2030s in 2010’.

“The report has projected a variable rate of change in agriculture production including losses in some crops, change in the composition of the forest and net primary productivity and spread of malaria in new areas,” he said.

According to Dave, the report had 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 namely Himalayan region, the Western Ghats, the coastal area and the northeastern region.

PTI