The political arena is not the only entity that is red hot this poll season: the country is being singed too. India was singled out for extreme weather events, including heat waves, floods and glacial lake outbursts, in this week’s State of the Climate in Asia report by the World Meteorological Organization. Asia, likewise, fared poorly, ranking second among regions in the world and recording a mean temperature rise of 0.91°Celsius above the 1991-2020 reference period. India’s situation is especially significant as it is in the middle of both a general election that will shape its future and heat waves that are scorching the country.
Yet, climate change does not seem to be foremost on the minds of either the electorate or its political representatives. Most poll manifestos have been rather muted on the climate crisis. There are mentions of forest rights, rights for the indigenous people, scaling up the country’s renewable energy capacity and meeting net-zero targets by 2070 in the manifestos of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). But none of them appears to acknowledge or, indeed, be knowledgeable about ecological disasters — the sinking of Joshimath being an example — that are the result of myopic policy decisions. Crucial interlinkages are also being ignored. Studies, for instance, have shown that rising child marriages in West Bengal can be attributed to natural disasters in the Sunderbans and growing domestic violence to heat waves; the International Labour Organization has found that erratic rains and temperature shocks can also worsen unemployment. In fact, almost all the issues on the ballot in India in 2024 — unemployment, education, healthcare, economic growth, caste inequality — intersect with climate change and its consequences.
It might also be instructive to read between the lines of the pledges in the manifestoes. The BJP’s vision relies heavily on providing continuity: in the last decade, it has passed contentious laws that dilute people’s rights and weaken environmental protection, accelerating climate change and its attendant challenges. The use of national security as an excuse to pass the watered-down Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 and the Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023 are cases in point. The Congress has promised an independent ‘Environment Protection and Climate Change Authority’ to monitor and enforce environmental standards. But will such an authority be rendered, as is often the case, toothless by the executive?
The only way of making climate change an electoral issue is by bringing it to the proverbial people’s court. A 2023 Ipsos survey showed that six out of ten Indians acknowledge the severe impact of climate change in their immediate surroundings. Among them, people from the marginalised communities especially identified climate shocks as threats to their survival. But there is an inherent dichotomy: Indians support climate action and expect the government to act, but climate change does not rank highly in the voters’ concerns like inflation and unemployment. The challenge, thus, lies in making people aware of the linkages among climate change and their concerns with lives and livelihood. The government, given the pressures on it from constituencies averse to climate change mitigation, cannot be expected to invest in sensitising the people. But it must be done before time runs out.
