What makes South Asia so vulnerable to climate change?

Heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan in the past week have killed at least 50 people across the country, nearly a year after massive floods killed more than 1,700 people and affected another 33 million.

In neighboring India, about a dozen districts in the northeastern state of Assam were hit by deadly flash floods in June, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and seek refuge in makeshift relief camps.

The devastating floods that killed at least 11 people meant many were faced with the daunting task of rebuilding their lives as they returned to destroyed homes and drowned livestock.

Rainstorms, droughts and climate change-induced warming have become increasingly common across the eight countries in South Asia, making it one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to the impacts of global warming.

Saleemul Haq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development, said the region was particularly at risk due to a combination of geography, population and poverty.

Over 1.5 billion people live in an area that is not that big a part of the world. It has major river systems of the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain regions flowing through it, he told Al Jazeera.

About 750 million people in South Asia have been affected by at least one natural disaster, according to data compiled by the Washington-based World Bank.

Lack of land to grow food, water shortages and displaced populations are some of the challenges the region is facing as climate experts predict irreversible consequences for the livelihoods of hundreds of millions.

Food insecurity

For thousands of years, South Asia has been seen as the world’s breadbasket for agriculture, a region with weather conditions suitable for growing crops, Pakistani climatologist Fahad Saeed told Al Jazeera.

However, with the onset of climate change, the delicate balance that was important for crop growth has been disturbed, Saeed said.

Findings from a study published in 2021 on wheat production to 2050, using crop simulation models, found that the most negative effects will be seen in South Asian nations with a 16 percent decline in yield.

Environmentalist Anjal Prakash said climate change will have significant implications for food security in South Asia.

Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and storms pose substantial challenges to agricultural systems in the region, Prakash said, adding that livestock productivity and fisheries will be negatively affected.

Furthermore, Prakash said climate change could also make water availability a significant problem in the region, which has one of the highest numbers of glaciers in the world, located in the Himalayas.

Melting glaciers and changes in rainfall patterns can disrupt irrigation systems, affecting crop growth and exacerbating water scarcity, said Prakash, who previously worked with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

A study by the University of Leeds published in 2021 found that the ice of the Himalayan glaciers is melting at least 10 times faster than the average rate of past centuries, due to human-induced climate change.

Researchers said the Himalayas, which cover countries like Pakistan, Nepal and India, have lost 40 percent of their ice over several hundred years.

Water scarcity and low crop yields will add to the ongoing hunger crisis in the region, climate experts said.

In 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FOA) said that about 21% of people in South Asia faced severe food insecurity, a 2% increase from 2020. In that same year, the region had the highest number of undernourished people in the world at 330 million, FOA said.

Thrust factor

Fears of a decline in food production, along with other climate-related calamities such as rising sea levels, have also raised alarms as millions of people in South Asia are displaced.

A report released by activist group ActionAid in 2020 estimates that the region could see up to 63 million people become migrants by 2050 due to extreme weather events.

Huq said the displacement due to human-induced climate change further adds to the economic migration from rural to urban areas, an ongoing phenomenon around the world, with South Asia being a major hot spot, with displacement greater that occurs in low-lying coastal areas.

Climate change is exacerbating the push factor – the motivation to migrate away from home for people who live in places where they can no longer continue to have the livelihoods they once had, be it agriculture or fishing, he said.

From the damage that occurs to infrastructure, farmland and homes, many people who evacuate are unable to return home. They actually become refugees.

In Bangladesh, Huq said about 2,000 people were moving to the capital Dhaka, many of them displaced by the effects of extreme weather from lowland coastal districts such as Barisal and Satkhira.

Dhaka is one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. Absorbing many millions perhaps in the region of 10 million new climate migrants over the next decade will simply be impossible. The facilities are inadequate for the existing population. They will be even more inadequate for the additional population, Huq said.

Human health concerns

Climate scientists have also warned that extreme weather patterns are exacerbating dire health conditions in some of the world’s poorest regions, with South Asia being no exception.

Physician and climate analyst K Srinath Reddy of the Public Health Foundation of India said heavy rains and floods are a harbinger of a myriad of vector-borne diseases.

Malaria, chikungunya, dengue fever are already present as health challenges in South Asia but will increase dramatically due to several factors such as rising temperatures, he told Al Jazeera.

Mosquitoes can breed in warmer areas that have now opened up. In fact, as humans wither in the heat, mosquitoes become athletic and can reach greater heights and thus can spread farther and faster. You will also find hilly areas that were previously not prone to malaria now much more prone to malaria at higher elevations.

Meanwhile, the increased intensity of heatwaves in South Asia has been linked to illnesses, including cardiovascular and respiratory disease, Reddy said.

Deadly heatwaves in India and Bangladesh in mid-April have been made 30 times more likely due to climate change, according to a study by World Weather Attribution.

A study published by the Lancet in October showed that India saw a 55% increase in deaths from extreme heat between 2000-2004 and 2017-2021.

Rais Akhtar, a climate expert and former national fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said the poor state of health care facilities in South Asia would make it easier for extreme weather conditions to affect human health, especially in rural areas where most live. of people.

In countries like Bangladesh and India, there is a kind of duality where there are well established healthcare facilities in some cities. But in rural and underdeveloped areas, these facilities are sorely lacking, including a shortage of doctors, he told Al Jazeera.

People have to travel to major cities for treatment, a costly ordeal for many.

Saeed, associated with the German think tank Climate Analytics, noted that in addition to the weak health infrastructure in South Asia, governments lack the response and relief capacity to provide adequate relief when climate-related disasters strike.

The devastation from last year’s floods was so massive, affecting an estimated 33 million people that government authorities such as the National Disaster Management Authority and hospitals have been caught on their heels, he said.

In addition, the catastrophic floods have also directly affected numerous health facilities across Pakistan, with the World Health Organization reporting that more than 1,400 hospitals have been destroyed or damaged, leaving thousands without access to medical care.