Elections done, India must unite for climate action

livemint.com:

The seven-phase general election was a stupendous achievement by any measure and places India firmly on the global map of sturdy democracies. However, the process carried a high cost in the midst of a torrid heat wave gripping much of the country. A shocking total of 43 staff, on duty on the last day of polling in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, are reported to have succumbed to the heat.

Climate scientists have long said the Indian landmass will be among the worst affected by global warming, an impact exacerbated by destruction of tree cover and other predatory gouging of natural resources. Yet, action to combat this existential threat had no play at all in the heat of electioneering rhetoric. The very terms in which the major sparring between political parties was phrased have to be repurposed.

The word ‘community’ automatically implies, in Indian usage, religious groups. But with global warming and freak climate events upon us, the word ‘community’ has to be used in its more usual global sense, as a group of people with shared geographical or occupational interests, like ‘farming community’ or ‘coastal community.’ What matters is the catastrophe confronted, whether it is forest-fire hit Uttarakhand or drought-hit Karnataka. The GDP print of real growth in 2023-24 at 8.2 % may well lull us into thinking the economic engine will chug us into third place in global GDP rankings, regardless of climate doomspeak.

There is also faith, fuelled by the success of space missions and digital payment channels, that the technology elite will miraculously save the country. But much of that technology elite operates from Bangalore, and like other human beings, they need water to live. Karnataka state has historically had drought-prone