Download Climate Change, Metropolitan Coastal Cities and Looming

Prof. B.K.P. Sinha, IFS (Retd.)
Advisor, Amity School of Natural Resources and
Sustainable Development
Email: [email protected]

Impacts
of
Climate
Change
on
Coastal
Metropolitan Cities

Climate change impacts cascading down to law
order problems like increased crimes and
conflicts in coastal cities

Approach to regulation



Many of our largest and fastest-growing
cities are located on the coast and
therefore vulnerable to the impacts of
changing climate.
Most of India’s 8,000-km-long coastal
regions are low-lying and densely
populated,
These cities form the engine of India’s
economy, including Mumbai, Kolkata,
Chennai,
Goa,
Surat,
and
Thiruvananthapuram.

Sea level rise - greater erosion and flooding
pressure.

Salt water intrusion to groundwater supplies,
threatens
the
quality
and
quantity
freshwater

Frequent severe windstorms;

Intense, and sometimes lethal, flash floods.
of

Disease
outbreaks
due
to
floods
and
temperature fluctuations

High
humidity
will
lead
to
increased
prevalence of vector-borne diseases

Loss of income due to a surge in diseases and
related absenteeism

Migration will further create competition and
conflicts for food, space, and employment
opportunities






Changing climate will further increase migration
rates.
Conflict arising from competition between
different groups due to scarcity of resources like
clean drinking water and food.
Conflicts related to cultural differences and
ethnic causes
Statutory level to provide for basic facilities,
Tax payer who may resist or try to conceal the
income.
Cultural, social and geographical group will lead
to frequent clashes and increased crimes.
Unemployment among migrant group
may result into further increase in crime
due to lower rates of engagements in
the economy.
 Basic goods and services shall increase
their prices, leading to inflation.
 Large scale shortages will lead to illegal
markets for basic food stuffs.
 These illegal markets will be run by
those willing to use threats or actual
violence.

Increased migration to big cities
resulting into despair.
 The process of losing a home and sense
of place, being vulnerable and without
shelter or focus while undertaking a
journey to uncertainty will all add to
desperate action.

Increase in the variability of weather
systems might pose problem for
insurance companies.
 Insurer will need to pay more premium
and situations of exploitations by
insurance companies in order to
increase profits might gain ground.



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The future will also witness several types of
social movements in favour or against the
climate change.
There is strong probability that in future
many of the environmental cases are
increasingly framed using average of
climate change.
Climate change may be taken in litigation
proceedings or it might be employed to
non court settings for example protest as a
direct course of action.
Climate change might affect our
approach to regulation.
 Will regulatory mechanism move away
from command and control techniques
towards
more
market
oriented
mechanism?

Thanks for your
attention