South Asia In A Line Of Fire

Research

In the past month, more than 1,200 people died during amid flooding in Bangladesh, Nepal and India. This year’s monsoon season has brought torrential downpours that have submerged wide swaths of South Asia, destroying tens of thousands of homes, schools and hospitals and affecting up to 40 million people. Aid organizations warns  it is one of the worst regional humanitarian crises this decade, with millions of people facing severe food shortages and disease caused by flood waters. Flood victims in southern Nepal stated that many paddy fields and agricultural lands destroyed causing massive economic crisis. Two months ago, Sri Lanka also faced to such type of heavy disaster as a result of unprecedented rainfall and hundreds of people lost their lives while millions became refugees. It`s obviously clear that something unusual and unprecedented have been happening in our surrounding facing it in critical manner. From decades, environmental scientists been continuously warns South Asia can become a hotspot of global climatic changes which are caused by hazardous effects of the universal phenomena, global warming. It is fact that the policy makers should considered to create warning systems to change countries policies towards eco-friendly pathways. 

Climate change connected with floods, droughts and such type of severe weather which is happening in South Asian region?

“This is not normal,” Reaz Ahmed, the director-general of Bangladesh’s Department of Disaster Management, told media recently. “Floods this year were bigger and more intense than the previous years. “Climate change appears to be intensifying the region’s monsoon rains. Rising sea surface temperatures in South Asia, for example, led to more moisture in the atmosphere, providing this year’s monsoon with its ammunition for torrential rainfall much the same way abnormally high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico intensified Harvey before it stalled over Texas. The common phenomenon what is happening is there is more precipitation in rainy season while less precipitation in dry season. So, we can easily attribute this incident towards the climatic changes related with global warming. The patterns of rainfall are becoming more erratic and unpredictable from day by day. According to the IPCC there are and there will be serious harmful effects to the South Asian region and Indian subcontinent due to the current severe weather condition. Regarding local temperature rises, the IPCC figure projected for the mean annual increase in temperature by the end of the century in South Asia is 3.3 °C with the min-max range as 2.7 – 4.7 °C. The mean value for Tibet would be higher with mean increase of 3.8 °C and min-max figures of 2.6 and 6.1 °C respectively which implies harsher warming conditions for the Himalayan watershed.  Causing towards the melting of Himalayan Glaciers, sea waters levels will be increased, dragging the Maldives and related small islands towards huge risk. Temperature kept rising and more and more unusual floods, droughts will cause to devastation of paddy culture which creates economic crisis and finally will pave the way for a large scale public uprising and social distresses.

According to psychological researches, increasing temperature can pave the way for more and more aggressive and socially unacceptable behaviours of people. After number of researches, scientists found that how risky situation our South Asian region is standing on. South Asia ranks high on lists of the most threatened regions, but it is far from the only place where scientists say global warming could change the fabric of society. Researchers South Asia-In a Line of Fire behind the study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that 4% percent of the South Asian population is expected to experience temperature and humidity conditions in which humans cannot survive without air conditioning by 2100. Three quarters of the population will experience environmental conditions considered dangerous, even if not downright unliveable. Even today, some dry seasons, hundreds of homeless poor people in India have been killed by extreme heat waves. Those signs can be considered as the indication of large scale destruction, which has been coming slowly but surely towards South Asian region. Literally, this world is not a just place. Crisis related with global warming is proving it further. Let’s take a particular example. The first among the countries to be affected by severe climate change is Bangladesh. Its sea level, temperature and evaporation are increasing, and the changes in precipitation and cross boundary river flows are already beginning to cause drainage congestion. There is a reduction in fresh water availability, disturbance of morphologic processes and a higher intensity of flooding and other such disasters. Bangladesh only contributes 0.1% of the world’s emissions yet it has 2.4% of the world’s population. In contrast, the United States makes up about 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they produce approximately 25 percent of the pollution that causes global warming. Meanwhile, United State and its new president still in a doubt to agree and ratify Paris climate Convention. This is not a regional issue, like sea erosion and such type of things. Poor South Asian countries have not ability to solve this in regional level. Major global industrial players like US and China who is contributing to emit more and more greenhouses gases to the earth`s atmosphere should listen to the mourning voices and grievances of South Asia and should take necessary steps to reduce their cruel actions towards mother nature!