The latest amendment to the Coastal Regulation Zone(CRZ) Notification could lead to a lot of devastation, Soumya Dutta, convenor of Beyond Copenhagen collective (MAUSAM) said on Saturday, backing the coastal communities’ strong opposition to the change.
Talking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a Goa Livelihood Forum event here, the climate change activist said, “Even with 500 metres [buffer zone], very clearly in many of our coastal areas, the gradient is low. We have seen in the last two years that contrary to the IPCC predictions, the actual sea level rise is faster. With a little bit of rise, with water onset, not only will those structures which are built close to sea be damaged, but also, more importantly, once the water comes in there will be no drainage outside. So the salinity increase will intrude faster.”
Mr. Dutta also spoke about his visit to Andaman after it was hit by a tsunami. “After the tsunami, a lot of water was trapped inside for over five years and that has increased the salinity, and a lot of agriculture has been destroyed. That will happen in coastal areas on a large scale and will destroy a lot of agriculture,” he said.
He also cautioned that the amendment would work against the interest of the traditional coastal communities. The maximum impact of climate change vagaries is felt in mountainous and coastal countries, he said.
Warning of the serious impact of climate change, he said, “It is time States conduct ecology-specific, demography-specific and carrying capacity-specific studies to understand what needs to be done to reduce vulnerability and work towards mitigation of distress due to climate change,” Mr. Dutta said.
He said the Central and State governments need to take climate change impact seriously, and recalled that the 2015 drought caused economic loss of $100 billion, which was around 4.5 to 4.75% of the then GDP, according to an ASSOCHAM and government study.
The country has to prepare impact plans not only for climate extreme events, but also for slow onset events, , Mr. Dutta said, and emphasised on the importance of climate impact and carrying capacity studies for mega development projects.
The climate change activist said the Indian population is highly vulnerable to climate change impact due to rise in sea level, droughts and heavy flooding, which bring deep stress on agriculture. He expressed unhappiness at the major knowledge gap in the country regarding the actual ground level impact of climate change. Many States, he said, carry out impact studies and chart out plans without taking communities, academia and others into confidence, to get small amounts of mitigation funding from UNDP.
Earlier, speaking at a session on ‘Livelihoods and Climate Change’ he said, “Climate change is here! Don’t ignore it,” and went on to prioritise the need for deeper involvement of civil society in policy implementation.