An aerial view of the destruction left behind by the super cyclone that hit Bangladesh in November. (AP/PTI)

Major cyclones like the recent one that devastated Bangladesh — it could easily have done the same to Calcutta and its surrounding areas if there wasn’t a marginal deviation in its trajectory a few hours before the storm hit the coast — and other weather extremes will become more routine in the not so distant future as a direct impact of climate change.

“Many major cities, especially those on the coast or near the coast, will not be able to manage the impacts of climate change,” warned David King, the chief scientific advisor of the UK government, who was recently in Calcutta to attend a programme organised by the British consulate and the NGO Center for Social Marketing.

Sitting beside Calcutta mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya at the programme, King made it clear that Calcutta, alongside cities like London, Mumbai and Dhaka, is on the “climate hit list”.

“Drainage will be a key issue as there could be more irregular rainfall.... Air pollution from automobiles, especially from diesel-run ones, is also matter of great concern,” reminded the British expert.

And who can deny that lack of drainage capacity and increase in vehicular pollution have always been problems in Calcutta?

“The drainage system cannot even cope with normal rainfall. At least 70 per cent of the residents of the city have to suffer because of prolonged waterlogging every year. God only knows what will happen if things change for the worse as a result of global warming,” said a senior government official.

“Pollution from diesel vehicles is continuously on the rise but there has been almost no real effort by the transport department to reverse the process. On top of that, attempts to control industrial pollution are scarcely having an effect,” said a senior scientist of the state pollution control board.

According to a recent Asian Development Bank report, diesel-run buses and trucks are major contributors to Calcutta’s air pollution.

But experts in the city are generally unwilling to relate climate change to air pollution. “Calcutta may be polluted but it is not contributing to greenhouse gases,” claimed a state board expert a few months ago in a public meeting on climate change, when there is ample evidence to the contrary.

“Fine particles — and the major contributor to air pollution in Calcutta are fine particles — do contribute to climate change,” asserted an expert from Jadavpur University.

Sarkari experts can run away from the truth for the time being but can they run away from the impact of climate change? Probably not.