Don’t wait for a disaster

Nature’s fury was recently unleashed across the country, from God’s own earth in Kerala to Uttarakhand in the Himalayas where the gods reside, though it was more severe in the pristine Western Ghats on account of human greed and apathy. Shiva chose his own abode to stage destruction’s dance, resulting in unprecedented devastation and untold misery with hundreds of lives lost.

We cannot complain because warning signals were being given for the past several years. Ever since it gave its first report in 1990, the IPCC has been highlighting the risks of climate change, “a grave and mounting threat to our well being and a healthy planet”; “our actions today will shape how people adapt and nature responds to increasing climate risks”.

We did not pay heed to the call and are paying for our callousness. Its latest report submitted in 2023 has been described as “the starkest warning yet” of “major inevitable and irreversible climate changes”, and “unavoidable hazards over the next two decades”. Whether it is Wayanad or Uttarakhand or Western Ghats, what were avoidable hazards if necessary precautions had been taken, became unavoidable, mainly because of inaction on the part of governments, Central and state, deliberately ignoring Madhav Gadgil’s report on the ecology of Western Ghats and encouraging reckless construction without consideration to the environment.

Climate change is also threatening cities and urban spaces. The intense heat earlier this summer, temperatures in Delhi touching almost 50 degrees C, ‘salubrious’ Bengaluru going without a drop of rain for two months in March and April, with consequent heat and water problems, the recurring floods in Mumbai and Chennai, and the relatively safer Pune experiencing unprecedented flooding this year, are just a few examples. Then, we have the recent tragedy of three civil service aspirants trapped in a basement of a reputed coaching centre and losing their lives in Delhi, and a few months earlier, the driver of a cab being crushed under a roof of the much lauded airport building in the national capital. Building collapses are becoming common across many urban areas, thanks to illegal and poor quality constructions. Concrete and steel infrastructure is destroying nature’s hydrological infrastructure, which if left unchecked, will cause serious damage to the city and its inhabitants.

According to the Global Risks Report, 2024, brought out by the World Economic Forum, of the 34 global risks, extreme weather events and pollution figure in the top ten. They include loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, largescale environmental damage incidents, and failure to mitigate climate change. Significantly, two-thirds of the respondents of the survey carried out opined that extreme weather events would pose the greatest threat to human well being and society. In India, about seven lakh deaths are attributed to abnormal heat and cold temperatures related to climate change. It is time to act and save our cities. Here are some urgent action points.

Plan and prioritise before you build: These days, projects are overtaking plans. Bengaluru is without a plan after its last master plan expired in 2015. Yet, huge projects are being drawn up -- a long tunnel road costing a staggering Rs 33,000 crore; a skydeck tower intended to be the tallest in the country, as a tourism project, overtaking the Statue of Unity (of Sardar Patel), built at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore in Gujarat. And there is the ongoing mindless white topping of roads using concrete, considered harmful to the environment. The tunnel road is neither a priority nor will it solve traffic problems as it will only act as an incentive to add more private vehicles, adding to pollution and defeating the purpose of promoting public transport. The master plan is aimed at: a) designing the land use pattern of a city and, b) providing the development perspective prioritising the needs of a particular city in terms of infrastructure, housing, transport and other services. In the present context of climate change and global warming, a fresh exercise must be undertaken to determine the priorities for each major city.

Ecology and Environment: In the current scenario, environmental protection that includes supply of safe drinking water, sanitation, management of different types waste --solid, liquid, hazardous and electronic, assumes tremendous importance. Water conservation, waste water recycling, controlling reckless groundwater exploitation must receive highest priority. Identify eco-sensitive zones in and around the city such as lakes, grasslands, wetlands and ban all construction in their vicinity. Control of air pollution has not received adequate attention. The National Clean Air Programme initiated five years ago in 131 cities was initially aimed at reducing two key air pollutants, viz., PM10 and PM2.5 (ultrafine particulate matter). A 2023 review of seven cities found that the pollution levels had remained the same or worsened in some cases. It is therefore necessary to implement a city-level action program to deal with air pollution which is the cause of several deaths and illnesses.   

Safe settlements: It may sound ironical that in a country where the poor and middle class are struggling to get decent minimum housing, the demand for luxury housing is on the rise in all metro cities. We also find a huge number of locked houses especially in the outskirts of cities. The fact is that land and housing prices have become unaffordable to most common people and house rents are  increasing rapidly. Data pertaining to 2023 shows average monthly rentals in parts of the top seven cities soared over 30%, Bengaluru recording the steepest rise. Government is showing no concern whatsoever in addressing this problem. While public authorities like BDA have utterly failed, government has left it to the market forces where profiteering holds sway. Young men and women migrating to big cities for employment are forced to stay in shabby PG hostels paying a substantial part of their income towards rent. Slums continue to dot the cities and together with unplanned settlements cropping up without regard to safety and sanitation, they become vulnerable to serious climate hazards. It is time government assumes responsibility to provide or facilitate decent rental housing at affordable rates.

Towards Green Cities: While contributing substantially to economic growth, cities are adding enormously to consumption of energy, water and other valuable resources on the one hand and to waste, pollution and health problems on the other. According to IPCC (2022), “urban areas are responsible for 70% of carbon dioxide emissions with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors”. We need to rethink urban planning and adopt creative and adaptive strategies like green infrastructure-green roofs, permeable pavements, waste water reuse and urban forestry, and build an urban future in balance with earth’s resources and ecosystems.

(The writer is a former chief secretary, Government of Karnataka)