9 Indian states among 50 most climate vulnerable regions

NEW DELHI: A report released by the Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) titled ‘Gross Domestic Climate Risk’ mentioned the top 50 regions in the world including nine Indian states to be facing a high risk of climate change. The report named Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The Cross Dependency Inititaive is a global organisation specializing in climate risk analysis for regions, banks and companies. The index calculated the ‘physical climate risk’ to built environments such as buildings and properties across 2600 states and provinces globally in 2050.

The physical climate risk referred to the vulnerability from eight climate change events: coastal flooding and sea level rise, heat waves, extreme wind, forest fire, soil movement or other drought-related hazards, free thaw, surface flooding and riverine. Using the global climate models, local weather and environmental data, the report compared the risk across territories and regions. According to the report, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, and Assam had the highest Aggregated Damage Ratio (ADR), which is the total projected amount of damage to the built environment in a particular region in 2050. The report also stated that the higher the ADR, the higher the ranking in this report. The report pointed out that Bihar would be the most vulnerable state of India, with 22nd rank globally, followed by Uttar Pradesh (25th), Assam (28th), Rajasthan (32nd), Tamil Nadu (36th), Maharashtra (38th), Gujarat (48th), Punjab (50 th), and Kerala (52nd). Assam would witness the maximum increase of climate risk which might rise up to 330 per cent by 2050 as compared to 1990.

In the list, China had the highest number of regions, followed by India and the United States. Overall, Asia dominated with 114 among the top 200 regions including Pakistan, Indonesia and most South East Asian countries. The report mentioned, “Devastating flooding between June and August 2022, affected 30 per cent of the area of Pakistan and has partially or fully damaged more than 9,00,000 houses in Sindh province.”

Asia is also most vulnerable to climate change in terms of overall damage risk. On the other hand, it stands to gain the most from preventing climate change to worsen and boosting investment in climate-resilient projects. Other countries with multiple provinces and states in the top 50 are Brazil, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

China is home to nine of the top 10 most vulnerable cities and 14 of the top 15. The three cities with the highest risk are Jiangsu, Shandong, and Hebei. In addition to this, Guangzhou has been estimated to be “the most economically vulnerable city in the world” by 2050 due to sea level rise. The only non-Chinese state in the top 10 was Florida, United States.

The report also pointed that the most damage posed to built infrastructure globally is caused by “riverine and surface flooding or flooding combined with coastal inundation.” Since 2011, Assam has experienced exponential increase in flood events and it had 15 of India’s 25 districts most vulnerable to climate change. Furthermore, 11 of the 36 districts of Maharashtra were found to be ‘highly vulnerable’ to extreme weather events, droughts and dwindling water security.

According to XDI, this is the first physical climate risk analysis focused exclusively on the built environment that has compared every state, province, and territory in the world. The modeling of the report is conducted under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s RCP 8.5 scenario- a scenario that projects high emissions, consistent with average global warming over three degree Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures by the end of the century.

XDI also stated that the report is especially important for investors as extensive built infrastructure generally overlaps with high levels of economic activity and capital value.