Climate change has the potential to massively disrupt and reshape lives.
Hence, vulnerable populations should be made aware of the potential risks and how to cope with them.
What are the risks involved?
There are several alarming predictions about the increasing erratic nature of world’s weather systems in the future due to climate change.
UN Sustainable Goals Report (SGR), 2018 notes that climate change is among the key factors in rising hunger and human displacement.
World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that climate change will cause an additional 2.5 lakh deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.
It has been predicted that climate change will enhance the prevalence of decreases like malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
Particularly, the vulnerability of low-income groups in developing countries like India is very high, which is also accentuated by its tropical location.
Notably, World Bank (WB) projects that climate change could cost India 2.8% of its GDP, and diminish living standards for nearly half of the population.
But despite these severe risks, the vulnerable population has little awareness of them, with little knowledge of the changing weather patterns.
What is the current situational awareness?
Several initiatives have been implemented to create awareness about climate change and about how to mitigate it and adapt to it.
In 1991, Supreme Court (SC) directed the Central government and all State governments to provide compulsory environmental education to all students.
Further, the court had directed “corporate organisations, research and education institutes, NGOs” to create awareness on the same.
The vision is to inculcate the concept of environmental sustainability and drive home the message for judicious use of food, water, nutrition and health.
However, despite these efforts, and the reach of the court’s order, climate change seems to find low salience in everyday lives and conversations.
Further, most of the country’s plans for vulnerable populations are towards poverty alleviation, enhancing access to education, sanitation, and healthcare.
With climate change emerging as an imminent challenge of a massive proportion, it deserves its due attention.
What is the way forward?
At present, climate change is not specifically mentioned as a domain permissible under “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) mandate.
While work in this area can be taken up as part of environmental sustainability, a more specific mention will help it gather more attention.
This way, more corporate organisations may be roped in to create awareness, mitigation and resilience-building.
Scaling up current initiatives of the corporate and social sectors to regional or national levels would be an early, albeit challenging, solution.
Similarly, the film industry, book writers, and gaming companies could design their products with an appeal in this regard.
