Paper: GS – III, Subject: Environment, Ecology and Disaster Management, Topic: Climate change and global warming, Issue: India’s urban climate crisis.
Context:
A World Bank report warns that 70% of India’s 2050 urban infrastructure is yet to be built.Indian cities are becoming metabolically unsustainable, producing more emissions than they can endure raising concerns.
Key Highlights:
Key Issues in India’s Urban Climate Crisis:
- Urban Metabolic Crisis
- Cities behave like living organisms, consuming energy and emitting heat, waste, and pollutants.
- India’s urban metabolism is out of sync with nature, leading to a “metabolic rift”.
- For examples, In Bengaluru, over 1,000 stormwater drains encroached (2024). Kolkata lost over 44% of water bodies in the last three decades.
- Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI):
- Cities use heat-retaining materials, glass infrastructure, and reduce green cover.
- For example, Delhi’s temperature is predicted to hit 47.3°C in May 2024 as a result of which heatwaves may increase by 5.7 times in 15 years.
- Urban Flooding & Informal Settlements:
- Half of India’s urban population lives in informal settlements (2020).
- Lack of drainage planning and sealed surfaces leads to increase in flood risks.
- For example, annual flood-related deaths are over 1,500.
- Structural Inequalities:
- Poor urban populations face disproportionate climate risks.
- Unequal distribution of green spaces and infrastructure intensifies such vulnerabilities.
- For example, Cities like Lucknow, Surat, and Chennai have more than 20% high mortality among seniors.
- Policy Failures & Governance Gaps:
- Top-down policies ignore local knowledge and community engagement.
- Fragmented responsibilities across institutions and agencies further impede coherent policies.
- For example, under the Climate Smart Cities Mission, only 10/126 cities conducted proper risk assessments.
Measures needed:
Promote Local Engagement:
- Encourage bottom-up governance, participatory planning, and locally-led innovation.
- For example, Ahmedabad’s Mahila Housing Trust helps women install cool roofs and microfinance support.
Right to a Resilient City:
- Urban resilience must be seen as a citizen right, not just a technical task.
- For example, the estimated cost to build resilient cities is $2.4 trillion by 2050 whereas the Current spending is only $120.5 billion
Ethics of Urban Resilience: Equity-focused planning is crucial by focussing on integrating resilience with infrastructure, not as a separate add-on.
Systemic Policy Reforms:
- Integrate resilience with transport, housing, health, and water infrastructure.
- Foster nature-based solutions, decentralised planning, and long-term sustainability.
Conclusion:
India’s urban climate crisis is not just environmental it is a result of policy failures and governance fragmentation. Future policies must embed equity, decentralisation, and citizen participation to build resilient and inclusive cities.
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