Can environmental crises be fixed?

Recently, the UN Secretary General warned that humans have waged a “suicidal war” on the Planet Earth, it is now a broken planet. It is facing every conceivable environmental challenge at global and local levels, affecting the health of humans and nature. He went on to say that it is time to “declare a permanent ceasefire and reconcile with nature” in order to secure a sustainable and safe future for us and the earth.

Global environmental challenges include climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, ocean pollution, deforestation, loss of wetlands, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, and so on. Any one of these environmental problems is in itself adequate to cause severe damage to humanity, imagine the combined effect of multiple stresses on humans and nature. In addition to these global challenges, there are innumerable local or regional environmental stresses such as air pollution, soil pollution, river and groundwater pollution, food wastage, faecal contamination of water, pesticide pollution, lack of sanitation, plastic pollution, dumping of municipal solid and liquid wastes.

One of the environmental challenges for which quantitative estimates are available is air pollution, which is contributing to the death of 1.67 million people a year in India alone, according to Lancet. The analysis showed that air pollution led to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory infections, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, neonatal disorders and cataracts. Many Indian cities and towns are among the most polluted cities in the world. Indeed, the top 15 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in India. The causes of air pollution are well-known, but not addressed.

The loss of biodiversity and wildlife is another major environmental threat. An average of around 25 per cent of species in assessed animal and plant groups are threatened, suggesting that around one million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss. Further, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are also disappearing. This loss of diversity, including genetic diversity, poses a serious risk to global food security by undermining the resilience of many agricultural systems to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate change.

Water pollution is a major threat to human life. According to Niti Aayog, overall, 70 per cent of the freshwater sources in India are contaminated and India ranks 120 out of 122 countries in terms of water quality. The major types of contaminants include faecal, nitrate, arsenic, fluoride, iron, industrial and urban wastes. More than 1.5 million children die every year from water-borne diseases alone. Ocean plastic pollution has reached a crisis point, with over 11 million tonnes added to the oceans every year. It is projected that plastic waste will outweigh all the fish in the oceans by 2050. Overfishing from oceans is threatening the current supply and the sustainability of future supply.

Apart from water pollution, availability of water itself is a challenge in large parts of India, despite receiving adequate rainfall from the monsoons. The water crisis is bigger than the Covid pandemic, with nearly 50 per cent of India’s population not having access to safe water. Nearly 200,000 die every year due to lack of access to safe water. A majority of India’s districts have been declared critical for groundwater. This means that they either have scarce supply or poor quality of groundwater, or both. Further, groundwater depletion is very severe and irreversible. Nearly 80 per cent of drinking water and two-thirds of irrigation water is from groundwater. Over 60 per cent of districts are in the category of ‘over-exploited’ for groundwater.

Deforestation continues to be a major global challenge, with an annual deforestation rate of 4.7 million ha during the recent decade. In India, the area under forest is shown to be increasing, largely due to an increase in the area under plantations of eucalyptus, poplar, etc., and many horticultural crops such as mango, coconut, cashew, and not due to the expansion of natural forests, which are declining. Deforestation, forest degradation, loss of wetlands and mangroves are leading to carbon dioxide retention in the atmosphere, loss of biodiversity, loss of many ecosystem services, and spread of infectious diseases to humans. Deforestation and loss of natural habitats can be strong drivers of infectious disease transmission, including pandemics such as Covid.

Land degradation is one of the biggest threats to sustained food production and freshwater availability. In India, according to the Space Application Centre, about 90 million ha is subjected to land degradation and desertification, which is perhaps an underestimate. Most land is subjected to one or more drivers of degradation, such as water runoffs and wind erosion, over-irrigation, salinisation, pesticide and fertiliser pollution, topsoil removal, over-grazing and fire. Unabated land degradation is already threatening food production. Further, 40 per cent of the food produced is wasted or lost. Imagine all the water, energy, pesticide, fertiliser, etc., used to produce food and the associated greenhouse gas emissions and loss of soil fertility.

Climate change is the biggest global and local environmental threat facing humanity and nature. So much is written about the extent of climate change, in particular, heat stress, floods, droughts, cyclones, hurricanes and sea-level rise. Climate change adversely impacts all aspects of human life and nature -- health, food production, biodiversity, water availability, land degradation, pandemics, etc.

If one were to list the environmental challenges, it would fill the whole of this newspaper. So, only a few major threats have been listed, and each of these challenges is affecting human life and nature. Global multilateral conventions and agreements exist such as the Paris Climate Agreement, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, UN Convention on Desertification, Convention on Biodiversity and a large number of national laws, policies and programmes exist. But environmental degradation continues. Technical and policy solutions exist to address most environmental threats, but there is very limited political will and citizens’ commitment. So, future generations will face the full fury of the impacts of environmental degradation. Covid-19 is just one example of those impacts.

(The writer is a former Professor, Indian Institute of Science)