Climate change and India: lives, floods and individual action

Detail

1. What climate change means (Class 9 definition)

• Climate change is a long-term change in weather patterns: temperature, rainfall and wind.

• "Long-term" means decades or more. One hot summer or one flood is weather, not climate change.

• Main human causes (Class 9):

• burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) in power plants, vehicles and factories, which adds CO2
• deforestation, which removes trees that soak up CO2 and releases the carbon stored in them

• industrial pollution, which releases greenhouse gases and other gases

• Effects listed in NCERT: floods, droughts, melting glaciers, rising seas and loss of biodiversity (the variety of plant and animal life).

• The response needs collective effort. Governments, industry and individuals all have to act:
• cut carbon footprints
• shift to renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro)
• protect forests
• live in sustainable ways

2. Carbon footprint: measuring one person's share

• Carbon footprint: the total greenhouse gas (GHG) released by a person, product, organisation or country.

• It is counted in CO2-equivalent (CO2-eq). Other gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are turned into "how much CO2 would trap the same heat". This lets all gases be added into one number.

• "My Carbon Footprint" activity (Class 9) gives a score in four areas:

Area	What raises your score	What lowers it
Transport	Private car or bike, flights	Walking, cycling, bus, metro
Electricity	ACs and lights left on, old appliances	LED bulbs, star-rated appliances, rooftop solar
Water	Wasteful use (pumping and treating water uses power)	Reuse, rainwater harvesting
Plastics	Single-use bags and bottles (made from petroleum)	Cloth bags, refills

• India's numbers in a global setting:
• Per person: India emits about 2 tonnes of CO2 a year. The world average is about 4.7 t and the USA's is about 14 t.
• Total: India is the third-largest emitter today, after China and the USA. Its large total comes from its huge population, not from high use per person.

• History: India's share of global CO2 emitted from 1850 to 2019 is less than 4%, though India holds more than 17% of the world's population [4]. (NCERT-derived figure: about 3–4% of cumulative CO2.)

• Why this matters (climate justice):

• CO2 stays in the air for centuries, so warming depends on cumulative (total, added-up) emissions, not just this year's.
• This is the basis of India's stand on CBDR (Common But Differentiated Responsibilities: all countries must act, but rich countries that polluted first must do more and help pay).

3. Punjab floods 2025: Class 9 case study

3a. Where it happened: the rivers

River	Origin	Course and major dam	Mouth / end
Satluj	Near Rakas Tal–Mansarovar, Tibet	Enters India at Shipki La (Himachal Pradesh); Bhakra dam (Himachal Pradesh)	Meets the Beas at Harike (Punjab), enters Pakistan, joins the Chenab → Panjnad → Indus
Beas	Beas Kund, near Rohtang Pass (Himachal Pradesh)	Kullu–Mandi–Kangra; Pong dam (Kangra)	Meets the Satluj at Harike
Ravi	Kangra–Chamba Himalaya, near Rohtang (Himachal Pradesh)	Ranjit Sagar (Thein) dam on the Punjab–J&K border; forms part of the India–Pakistan border	Enters Pakistan, joins the Chenab
Ghaggar	Shivalik Hills, Himachal Pradesh	Seasonal river that flows through Haryana and Punjab	Dies out in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan (inland drainage)

• The Satluj, Beas and Ravi are Indus tributaries. Their upper basins (catchments) lie in Himachal Pradesh and J&K. So heavy rain in the hills turns into a flood downstream in the Punjab plains.

3b. Natural causes

• Heavy monsoon rain fell over Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and J&K in August–September 2025.
• Western disturbances made it worse:
• Western disturbance (WD) = a low-pressure system that starts over the Mediterranean region. The subtropical westerly jet stream (a fast, high-level wind blowing west to east) carries it east to north-west India.
• The WD meets the moist monsoon winds → the air is forced to rise and cool → the vapour condenses → very heavy rain in short bursts.
• Result: the Satluj, Beas, Ravi and Ghaggar all overflowed.

3c. Human causes: how a hazard became a disaster

• Weak, old dhussi bandh (earthen embankments along Punjab's rivers). They breached when the water rose.
• Building on floodplains (the flat land beside a river that it naturally floods). Homes and fields there lie in the water's path.
• Silted rivers and dams. Mud and sand (silt) settle on riverbeds and in reservoirs, so they hold less water. Rivers spill over sooner, and dams must release water.
• Late or unclear warnings. People had little time to move people, cattle and goods.

3d. Effects

• Deaths, and families moved to relief camps
• Paddy (rice) fields drowned, a big loss because the floods came in the kharif season
• Livestock died
• Roads, bridges and border fencing damaged (the Ravi and Satluj run along the India–Pakistan border)
• Waterborne diseases (diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid) from dirty standing water

3e. The lesson: hazard + vulnerability = disaster

• Warming "loads the dice":
• warmer air holds more water vapour (about 7% more for each 1 °C)
• → more moisture is available for each storm

• → very heavy rain events become more likely

• Poor land and water management turns the hazard into a disaster: weak embankments, encroached floodplains, silted channels and weak warnings.

• Classroom debate (natural vs human causes): the honest answer is "both". A hazard (heavy rain) becomes a disaster only when it hits vulnerable people and buildings.
• NDMA flood guidelines (National Disaster Management Authority) cover flood-plain zoning, embankment upkeep, early warning and community preparedness. Details are in the natural-hazards-disasters note.

4. Mitigation, adaptation and resilience (Class 7)

Term	Meaning	Asks the question	Examples
Climate change mitigation	Steps that slow global warming by cutting its causes	"How do we warm the planet less?"	Cutting emissions, renewable energy, energy efficiency, tree planting, sustainable lifestyles
Climate change adaptation	Adjusting to actual or expected change to reduce harm	"How do we live with the change already coming?"	Heat action plans, climate-resilient seeds, early warning, mangroves, flood planning
Resilience	The ability to withstand a shock or recover quickly	"How fast can we bounce back?"	Strong embankments, insured farmers, cyclone shelters

• The tension Class 7 points out: mitigation often clashes with the wish for economic growth and more consumption (more cars, ACs and goods mean more emissions).
• Sustainable = meeting today's needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet theirs.

5. Adaptation in India: examples

• Heat action plans
• Ahmedabad Heat Action Plan (2013) was the first in South Asia.
• It includes early heat alerts, cool drinking-water points, longer hospital hours and training for health workers.

• NDMA later issued heat wave guidelines so that other states and cities could copy the model.

• Climate-resilient seed varieties: crops bred to survive drought, flooding, salty soil or heat.

• Better forecasts and early warning
• National Monsoon Mission: improved the models that forecast monsoon rain.
• Mission Mausam: approved by the Union Cabinet on 11 September 2024, with ₹2,000 crore over two years, to make India "weather-ready and climate-smart" [3].
  • Run by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) through three bodies: IMD (India Meteorological Department), IITM (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune) and NCMRWF (National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting) [3].
  • Tools: next-generation radars and satellites, high-performance supercomputers, better Earth system models, and a GIS-based automated Decision Support System to send warnings to last-mile users in real time [3].

• Better warnings target the "late or unclear warnings" failure seen in the 2025 Punjab floods.

• Mangrove restoration under MISHTI

• MISHTI = Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats & Tangible Incomes. It was launched on 5 June 2023 (World Environment Day) [2].
• Target: restore and plant mangroves over 540 sq km in 9 coastal states and 4 UTs [2].
• Funding: it is run in convergence (by pooling money from existing schemes) with CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority). In FY 2024–25, ₹17.96 crore went to Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Odisha, West Bengal and Puducherry to restore 3,836 ha of degraded mangroves [2].
• Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees of tropical intertidal coasts (land covered by the sea at high tide). They act as bio-shields: their roots break waves and storm surges and hold the soil against erosion [2].
• India's mangrove cover (ISFR 2023): 4,991.68 sq km, about 0.15% of India's area. That is up 363.68 sq km (7.86%) since 2013 [2].
• Ranking: West Bengal 42.45% (Sundarbans) > Gujarat 23.32% > Andaman & Nicobar Islands 12.19% [2].
• Legal protection: the CRZ Notification 2019 makes mangroves Ecologically Sensitive Areas. Where a patch is larger than 1,000 sq m, it has a 50 m buffer zone. If development damages mangroves, 3:1 compensatory replanting is required [2].

• Related projects: the GCF–ECRICC project (Green Climate Fund, with UNDP) has run since 2019 in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Odisha. It aims at 10,575 ha of mangroves, and 3,114.29 ha had been restored by 2024 [2].

• Coastal and urban flood planning: flood-plain zoning, drainage master plans for cities, cyclone shelters and embankments.

• The finance gap: adaptation finance is the "poor cousin" of mitigation finance. Most global climate money goes to emission cuts (such as solar parks) because they can earn profits. Adaptation projects (such as embankments and heat plans) rarely do, so poor countries get far less money for adaptation than they need (see Section 8).

6. Linked case: Kedarnath (Class 7 box)

• The 2013 Kedarnath disaster (Uttarakhand) also mixed natural and human causes:
• Natural: extreme rain in mid-June, the early monsoon meeting a western disturbance, and a glacial lake (Chorabari) bursting.

• Human: buildings on the riverbanks of the Mandakini, plus unplanned roads and tourism growth.

• Together with the Punjab floods of 2025, it shows a pattern across the Himalaya and its foothills: heavier rain hitting badly planned land.

Prelims Hooks

• Harike (Punjab) is where the Satluj and Beas meet. The Harike Wetland there is a Ramsar site.
• River–dam pairs: Satluj–Bhakra, Beas–Pong, Ravi–Ranjit Sagar (Thein). The Ghaggar is a seasonal river with inland drainage that ends in the Thar.
• Dhussi bandh = the earthen flood embankments of Punjab.
• Western disturbances start over the Mediterranean and are carried east by the subtropical westerly jet stream.
• Mission Mausam: approved 11 September 2024; ₹2,000 crore; run by MoES through IMD, IITM and NCMRWF [3].
• MISHTI: launched 5 June 2023; 540 sq km; 9 coastal states + 4 UTs; funded through CAMPA convergence [2].
• Mangrove cover by state (ISFR 2023): West Bengal > Gujarat > Andaman & Nicobar [2].
• First heat action plan in South Asia: Ahmedabad, 2013.
• Trap: India is the 3rd-largest total emitter, yet emits under 4% of cumulative CO2 (1850–2019) [4] and about 2 t CO2 per person a year, below the world average of about 4.7 t.
• Trap: Mitigation = reduce the causes (renewables, trees). Adaptation = reduce the harm (heat plans, mangroves, seeds). Planting mangroves does both: it stores carbon and protects the coast.

Mains Points

• GS-III (disaster management): the Punjab floods of 2025 show that "hazard + vulnerability = disaster".
• Warming makes intense monsoon–western disturbance rain more likely over the Satluj–Beas–Ravi catchments.
• Weak dhussi bandh, encroached floodplains, silted rivers and reservoirs, and late warnings turned that rain into a disaster.

• Remedies: flood-plain zoning (NDMA guidelines), coordinated dam release across Himachal Pradesh, J&K and Punjab, embankment upkeep, desilting, and impact-based warnings under Mission Mausam [3].

• GS-III (environment): climate justice.

• India emits under 4% of cumulative CO2 while holding over 17% of the world's people [4]. Its per-person emissions (about 2 t) are well below the USA's (about 14 t).
• This supports CBDR and India's call for finance and technology from rich countries.

• Individual carbon-footprint cuts (transport, electricity, water, plastics) add to national action; they do not replace it.

• GS-III: adaptation must get equal weight with mitigation.

• Examples: heat action plans (Ahmedabad 2013), climate-resilient seeds, Mission Mausam forecasting [3], and MISHTI mangrove bio-shields (540 sq km target; cover 4,991.68 sq km in ISFR 2023) [2].

• Limitation: adaptation finance is still much smaller than mitigation finance.

• GS-I/III: there is a trade-off between growth and mitigation.

• Rising consumption and energy demand push emissions up.
• Answers: energy efficiency, renewables, and lifestyle change ("sustainable lifestyles", which Class 7 calls a key mitigation step).