New Delhi, April 7: Impacts of climate change will increase hardship for India’s poorest women, says a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). As per the report, “women are often responsible for providing daily essentials such as food and water, when climate related disasters strike low income families, the health and workload of women and girls are compromised and inequities with regard to access emerge”.

The report has assessed that by 2017, India will be water-stressed and the per capita availability will decline to 1,600 cubic meters. “The water requirements are expected to double by 2025. Agriculture, the largest consumer of water resources, will utilise more than 70 per cent of available water by 2025 to support the increasing food demand in the country,” underlines the report.

“Water supplies will drastically shrink as snow disappears and ice melts. The glaciers of the Himalayas are retreating at a pace faster than ever recorded. The lack of safe water will most probably trigger outbreaks of diarrhoea and other diseases,” says the report. The WHO has projected the relative risks associated with climate change in 2030 and estimates that the number of cases of malnutrition cases will increase by more than 10 per cent as a consequence of climate change.

Water-borne diseases like malaria may penetrate elevations above 1,800 metres and 10 per cent more states may offer climatic opportunities for malaria vector breeding throughout the year.

Experts say that India has already started witnessing impact of the climate change. The latest epidemics of Chikungunya and dengue are an impact of climate change and in coming years we will see more of it.

“India is working on a plan which will be released in June. We are advising the Government to prepare themselves as we have enough reasons to move quickly for plan preparedness,” said Dr Poonam Khetarpal Singh, WHO’s Deputy Regional Director, on the occasion of World Health Day. Climate change and its impact on health was the topic for this year’s World Health Day.

“More respiratory diseases, infections due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, death related to increased heat waves, cyclones, storms will be some of the health related outcomes of climate change,” added Dr Singh.

“Air quality will suffer and respiratory illnesses will be exacerbated. Heat waves will be more intense and of longer duration, mainly affecting children and elderly,” said Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, WHO’s Regional Director, South-East Asia.

Outcomes of climate change

• Consecutive droughts between 2000 and 2002 in eastern India (Orissa) and crop failure affecting 11 million people.

• Temperature rising more than 50 degree Celsius in western India in 1994.

• Mumbai experienced record rainfall in July 2005 causing 1,000 deaths.

• In 2006, Surat (Gujarat), Barmer (Rajasthan) and Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir) experienced severe floods during monsoons.

• In 2007, 20 states across India witnessed severe floods. At least 3,339 people died.