Col. Prof. Sanjay Srivastava Chairman
Climate Resilient Observing Systems
Promotion Council (CROPC) & Professor of Practice
TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi
It was 28th of June, 2024 when Delhi-NCR woke up to a flooded morning. The flights from Terminal 1 at Indira Gandhi International Airport were suspended as there were severe damage to the façade and related infrastructure causing delay and suspension in flights. The cargo area was flooded and the stuff in transit had severe impact to the tune of total damage to parcels. The logistics companies and e-service providers had a time of nightmare in damage control. There were huge payouts due to the event. Actually, India Meteorological Department (IMD) had forecasted heavy rain in Delhi on 27 June 2024. This was followed by a midnight nowcast of extremely heavy rain. Next day, Delhi-NCR region woke up to a flooded morning. Delhi had a thunderstorm & lightning and extremely heavy rain on 28 June 2024. The turbulent wind damaged façade of T1 terminal of Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGAI) and airport operations from Terminal 1 was suspended for 48 hours. Safdarjung experienced more than 228.1mm rain in 24 hours which was first such incidents since 1936. Gurugram, NOIDA to Delhi, the precipitation varied from 40mm to 260mm which was historical. At IGAI, entire cargo area was flooded causing damage to the stored items in transit and disrupting the supply chain management. This being a working day, there were terrible traffic jam in entire NCR region. The intensity of rain was so much that any city with such extreme rainfall will get adversely impacted. Overall, the event had huge impact on the national and international business of more than INR2100 crores. This risk was not fathomed, weather warnings were ignored and corporate houses had to bear unbearable losses. The risk assessments were not done properly. And hence, even risk transfer tools like insurance did not work.
There have been extreme events felt more frequently in most of the parts. Besides metro, tier 2 cities were more affected. In another event of heavy rain in Gurugram the DLF mall and expensive apartments like Camelia and magnolia had to face the wrath of flash flood. Since, the luxurious hutments and global stature, commercial malls, and IT-hubs like Cyber city are located in the vicinity of lake areas in the natural grains of Aravalli to the lakes, the water always follows natural grains, the infrastructures in the area will be affected. Similar extreme rains were felt at many cities viz. Hyderabad, Mumbai, Vadodara, Rajkot, Wayanad etc. Since Indian cities are developing very fast, there has been rapid growth of Infrastructures. An estimated impact of extreme weather in terms of financial losses in recent past has been depicted in Table 1 below:-
Changing weather and extremes events like flash flood, sudden thunderstorms, lightning & hail, unbearable heat are being witnessed across the country. Weather is now a visible risk and it’s a big challenge to security and safety. Recent years have been marked with such extremes. It’s time to take a re-look and adopt weather intimately to have a fruitful way forward
Last year, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared the ‘era of global boiling’ has arrived after July 2023 which was the hottest month ever record ed. The impact is being felt in terms of extreme and erratic events like heat wave beyond human endurance, sudden heavy rain in very short time, extreme colds, rapid rise in storms, cloud burst, thunderstorms and lightning. As per the research by University of California and the Indian researches by India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Climate Resilient observing Systems Promotion Council (CROPC), with one degree rise in temperature, there is 12% rise in evaporation that is overloading additional moisture. During last two-month August-September 2024, there have been four deep depressions in Bay of Bengal. There has unique phenomenon of deep depression in Bay of Bengal crisscrossing east to west and effecting western states. There was also a recurve of deep depression.
“Changing weather and extremes events like flash flood, sudden thunderstorms, lightning & hail, unbearable heat are being witnessed across the country. Weather is now a visible risk and it’s a big challenge to security and safety. Recent years have been marked with such extremes. It’s time to take a re-look and adopt weather intimately to have a fruitful way forward”
Climate change is not hypothetical, but it is also here, right now, at our gates. Senator Andrew Young had pointed out in US Presidential election in 2019. Even now, in the recent impending US Presidential election, Climate change is bone of contention.
The risk of weather events affects everyone. Rather entire life cycle of common man, government and corporate businesses are governed by weather. There is state-of-the-art early warning forecast available by IMD. The government has laid down rules for usage of land as per master plan. Weather events, if sensibly followed, give adequate knowledge and opportunity for a progressive business instead of careless attitude causing huge damage. In addition, there are collateral impacts of complete SCM, mobility, solid waste management, energy transmission and distribution, and most importantly human health. The estimated economic damages during few recent events, as given in table 1 have been in thousands of crores causing dent to the economy. It’s worth pondering over the emerged risk of weather, especially extreme events.
Cities have encroached upon the rivers and the land use zonation are encroached, municipal corporations are finding it tough to deal with the situations. The corporates are deeply engrossed into their business, least realizing the emerging risks and its impacts. For most of these corporates, these are short term events and it would be over by after few days or hours.
The heat waves in 2024 were at extremes in many cities with temperature soaring in between 40 to 50 degree celcious. The working hours of people in corporate, government and routine business were grossly compromised. Rather, in peak hours of heat that is past mid-day till evening, 4-5 hours were almost zero work. There were many casualties. In fact, the impact of extreme heat may not be visible apparently, but it does affect everyone and your productivity decreases significantly.
The demand of energy increases. Power generation and distribution companies (Discoms) need to evaluate it properly so that they reap the dividends by fulfilling power demands or end up in paying penalties if they fail in fulfilling the Service Level Agreement (SLA) in supplying the desired power and its technical specifications.
Weather is one of the most important factors of security. It is mandatory need for every one’s safety and well-being. The risk is well known. The scientific solutions by Indian scientific agencies are available in open domain in larger public interest. The corporates and other government departments – both need to carry out proper risk assessments. There are adequate data available for more than 100 years to carry out proper risk identification, its analysis, derive monetary values of the risk drivers and ensure proper risk transfer mechanism. A state like Nagaland has carried out detailed parametric analysis of weather and related hazards, and ensured 100% insurance of the state, its citizen and assets. That makes it the most investment and business friendly. Every citizen is wells sensitised and there is a culture of weather smart community and business practices. Rather, big cities and corporate houses need to learn from such practices.
India today has excellent integration of early warning of all hazards and response on one platform. National Disaster Management Authority has launched a comprehensive platform for all risks due to weather and hazards at one platform through a mobile application named SACHET. Sachet in Hindi means that one is well alerted. On the lines of developed countries like USA, Singapore and other developed countries, 112 has been launched as single emergency number in India as a mobile number and an app. Today, ‘112 India’ app is available on google play store. 112 response agencies have been brought under one umbrella through a Single Emergency No 112 ERSS. The same have reflected at Table 2 above:
It is encouraging that today, to meet the emerging demands of risk incorporated business continuity and developmental activities, besides top Big4 consulting agencies, there are companies like Mitkat Risk Advisory and Consulting services and others. It is pertinent to mention that the risks of weather are rising and are going to be more complex. Companies, government and community need to take services of professional and competent agencies to evaluate their current operations and business from the weather point of view.
Climate action and climate adaptation are order of the day. Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) by India are encouraging. SEBI has made Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) mandatory for 500 fortune companies. In view of India’s target to become carbon net zero by 2027, there is a requirement to adopt suitable measures for climate action. The National Climate Action Plan and our climate action goals are opportunities to undertake climate change adaptation as well as climate actions. Weather lies at the core of these actions.
The global warming, if not contained, is going to cause more rise in extreme events. There are preventive and mitigation measures which need to be catering for futuristic need against the complex risks of weather. Any business would need a weather risk incorporated secure and safe business operations. There is change required in the mindset of business leaders to understand the impact of climate change, analyze it and adopt professional measures to minimise adverse impacts. It’s the need of the hour to have weather security as mandatory part of any business or government.
