EFFECTS
l Changes to India’s annual monsoon are expected to result in severe droughts and intense flooding.
Scientists predict that by the end of the century, the country will experience a temperature increase of 3 to 5 degree Celsius and a 20 per cent rise in summer monsoon rain.
l The IPCC says a population of 1.5 billion to 3.5 billion could face the risk of being afflicted by dengue by 2080 as a result of global warming. Besides, worldwide it is estimated that an additional 220 to 400 million people could be exposed to malaria.
l Long-term damage to India’s water cycle. The livelihood of a vast population in India depends on agriculture, forestry, wetlands and fisheries and land use in these areas is strongly influenced by water-based ecosystems that depend on monsoon rains.
l Sea levels will rise by at least 40 cm by 2100, inundating vast areas on the coastline, including some of the most densely populated cities whose populations will be forced to migrate inland or build dykes
l Crop productivity will fall, especially in non-irrigated land, as temperatures rise for all of South Asia by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius on average by 2040, and even greater crop loss—of over 25 per cent—as temperatures rise to up to 5.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
l Mortality due to heat-related deaths will climb, with the poor, the elderly and daily wage earners and agricultural workers suffering a rise in heat-related deaths
l Huge areas of Bangladesh will go underwater and environmental refugees will flock to the Indian border, exacerbating an already tense situation not only in the states contiguous to Bangladesh but in cities as far off as Mumbai and Delhi.

... contd.