GUWAHATI, April 19: Three Northeastern states – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, along with five other eastern Indian states, have been identified as highly vulnerable to climate change, the national climate vulnerability assessment report has revealed.
The five other states identified in the highly vulnerable category are Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal.
“These states, mostly in the eastern part of the country, require prioritisation of adaptation interventions, the report said.
Titled ‘Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India Using a Common Framework’, the report identifies the most vulnerable states and districts in India with respect to current climate risk and key drivers of vulnerability.
The report was released by the department of science and technology secretary, Professor Ashutosh Sharma on Saturday, an official statement said.
“We have seen how extreme events are on rise both in terms of their number and severity. Mapping the parts of India that are vulnerable to such changes will help initiating climate actions at the ground level. The report should be made easily accessible to all stakeholders so that it can benefit climate-vulnerable communities across India through development of better-designed climate change adaptation projects,” Sharma said.
He also suggested that the maps should be made available through mechanisms like apps to people who need it.
A total of 94 representatives from 24 states and two Union Territories participated in the nation-wide exercise jointly supported by the department of science and technology and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
The assessments undertaken with the active involvement and participation of states and Union Territory governments and hands-on training and capacity-building exercises have identified vulnerable districts.
Among all states, Assam, Bihar, and Jharkhand have over 60 percent districts in the category of highly vulnerable districts.
The assessment will help policymakers in initiating appropriate climate actions. It will also benefit climate-vulnerable communities across India through development of better-designed climate change adaptation projects.
Dr Anamika Barua, professor, IIT Guwahati, underlined that this vulnerability assessment is unique as a common framework has been used across the states and Union Territories (UTs) to make them comparable and also because of the active participation of the state and UT governments.
In a developing country such as India, vulnerability assessment is considered an important exercise to develop suitable adaptation projects and programmes.
While climate vulnerability assessments for various states and districts already exist, the states and districts cannot be compared to each other as the framework used for assessments are different, thereby limiting decision-making capabilities at the policy and administrative levels. This necessitated an assessment using a common vulnerability framework.
Keeping this requirement in mind, the department of science and technology and SDC supported the development of a Common Framework for Vulnerability Assessment for the Himalayan region based on the definition provided in the latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The Common Framework, along with a manual to apply the framework, was developed by IIT Mandi, IIT Guwahati, and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The framework was applied to the Indian Himalayan Region, involving all 12 states through the capacity building process.
The outcome of the exercise undertaken was shared with the Himalayan states, leading to several positive developments in terms of some of these already prioritising and implementing climate change adaptation actions based on these vulnerability assessments.
Based on the positive feedback received from the states and its usefulness to the Himalayan states for implementing climate change adaptation actions, it was decided to roll out the climate vulnerability assessment exercise for the entire country through capacity building of the states.
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