



India’s flurry of trade deals will need climate-resilient ports to justify today’s wave of export optimism
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. India’s flurry of trade deal-making with the UK, EU, US and others has revealed a push for strong export growth. Tariff barriers are coming down, standards are being aligned and new sectors from electronics to renewables are being positioned for global integration.
But this quest rests on a brittle foundation. India’s port and logistical infrastructure is out of step with the demands of climate-resilient trade. The country’s maritime ambitions are growing faster than its ability to shield its nodal points of trade from floods, heatwaves and chronic inland bottlenecks.
Over 95% of India’s international merchandise trade by volume moves by sea. Kandla, Nhava Sheva, Mundra, Visakhapatnam and Chennai move hundreds of millions of tonnes of cargo annually. Capacity has been expanding steadily to meet shipping demand.
Yet, none of these ports, nor the country’s ambitious Sagarmala programme overseeing their expansion, is adequately prepared for the scale of climate disruption projected in the next two decades. The science is clear. Along India’s coastline, sea levels are rising faster than the global average.
Tide gauges at Kandla, for instance, have recorded a level-rise rate of 3.18mm per year since 1950. This sounds trivial until storm-surges arrive, riding on higher baseline levels. Each millimetre adds force to waves that crash into port infrastructure.
Each centimetre pushes water deeper into coastal terminals. Combined with sinking land in some areas and intense cyclones in the Arabian Sea, these trends sharply increase the risk of coastal inundation. Mumbai, the Gulf of Khambhat and Kerala are highly exposed.
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