Scientists estimate that the Indian islands of Andaman and Nicobar will be uninhabitable by 2100 due to melting ice caps and rising sea levels. The Government of India would either have to adopt institutional changes or convince tribals, who are already vary of the government, to vacate the island.
Across the globe, over 600 million people live along coasts. Most of these places are less than 10 meters above sea level. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations (UN) body that assesses the impact of climate change, released a special report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in Changing Climate (SROCC) in September 2019. It announced that along with the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, several other low-lying islands would soon be uninhabitable due to the exponential rise in sea levels. Since the world is heating up, oceans are undergoing thermal expansion, i.e., water is expanding as it gets warmer. With land-based ice melting and glaciers softening, the oceans are further eating up the land.
The IPCC report further said that the severity of climatic events might increase in India. The report also pointed out that climate change is affecting wind patterns and the rainfall cycle, which might also increase the frequency of natural disasters. India ranks among the top three countries in the world that have recorded the maximum number of natural disasters in recent years, the other two being the United States of America and China. Globally, the average number and cost of billion-dollar disasters have also drastically increased in the past five years. From seven events per year (1980-2020) with a cost of $45.7 billion, the events have now increased to over 16 per year with a cost of over $121 billion.
A similar situation globally
Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu have been recognized by the UN as the most vulnerable nations in the world to climate change. According to data from 2019, over 11,600 people live in Tuvalu. As Tuvaluans are grasping their sinking reality, many are worried if the people from bigger countries are going to accept them as they vacate the island. The UN Environment Programme pointed out that moving people to industrialized countries is going to increase their consumption and accelerate climate change. In other words, city life is the leading cause of climate change. Adding more hands in the capitalistic loop would only further the problem.
Aminath Shauna, Minister of Climate and Environment, Maldives, while in conversation with CNN, said that if the world continued at this pace then “there will be no Maldives by 2100.”
The Maldives is one of the aforementioned nations that are at the forefront of facing the impact of climate change as their land is inching away from under their feet. According to scientists, the island will vanish in the next 30 years or sooner.
How is the globe dealing with it?
Maldives is a country with the lowest terrain, with 80 percent of its 1190 coral islands standing less than 1 meter above sea level. To tackle the rapidly growing issue, Maldives is creating artificial islands like Hulhumale. This new island is made by pumping sand into the seafloor onto a submerged coral platform. This way, the newly-created island is two meters above sea level. The Government of Maldives is also exploring the option of buying land on higher ground in another country for a situation where the country’s resilience is broken down by climate change.
Tuvalu, a country described by the United Nations Development Program as the “least-developed country” that is “extremely vulnerable” to the effects of climate change, is planning the construction of a sea wall. The much-delayed sea wall will be constructed to protect the administrative center of the capital. Local town councils have also planned to reclaim the land south of Fongafale and raise it by 10 meters above sea levels. They would then build high-density housing in the area. However, these plans require funding that the country cannot afford on its own.
India’s plan for Andaman and Nicobar
National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) has developed a `75,000 crore vision for the ‘Holistic Development of Great Nicobar Island in Andaman and Nicobar Islands’. The proposal includes a greenfield international airport, a power plant, a township complex spread over 166 sq km and an international container transhipment terminal. The construction would mainly be done in the coastal systems and tropical forests. The plan has raised several eyebrows by environmental groups. In a review meeting, it was pointed out that the proposal does not include the number of trees to be felled during this development process. The number could go up in millions since most of the construction work is planned in areas of tropical forests. Trees allow the soil to soak in water and retain its nutritional value. If the proposal is taken up for consideration, it would further the impact on the island’s forests and consequently push it further into the sinking hole.
Mihir Kumar Bhatt, Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, suggests that the issue needs to be taken into cognizance on a global level. “The climate change response agenda should be of a transformative nature”. He said that in order to reverse the effects of climate change, the world needs to have a response agenda that transcends the development pace and pathways. What the world currently needs is to evaluate the risk depending upon the analysis of how much the seas will rise, who and what it will impact the most, and who is going to be its first casualty. “Considering multiple types of hazards reduces the likelihood that risk reduction efforts targeting one type of hazard will increase exposure and vulnerability to other hazards, in the present and future,” said IPCC in its report. Hence, it is crucial to keep the urban ecosystem in mind while formulating a strategy to counter a certain aspect of climate change.
With regard to the situation of India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands, preventive measures need to be adopted soon. Scientists estimate that sea levels will continue to rise and reach around 30-60 cm by 2100 if greenhouse emissions are not sharply reduced. With regard to these studies, Bhatt advises that it is all the more important now for citizens of India to actively partake in adaptive measures. “To address climate change now, it is crucial for the society to help authorities in resistance building”.
The sinking islands really put one through the imaginative drive if Atlantis was a real island. Legend has it that Atlantians got greedy and hence God decided to put them in their place in the ocean’s basin. So where does that leave humans?