THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2024
The adage better late than never possibly describes Goa best when it comes to issues related to protecting the environment. Be it taking decisions on reforestation, on preparing the coastal zone management plan or even the Regional Plan, Goa proceeds so slowly that it misses deadlines and even after that doesn’t expedite. The Coastal Zone Management Plan is one example, and there are more, which includes the climate change mitigation efforts. The Sustainable Development Goals report released in June last year, had placed Goa at the third spot for overall performance, but the State had slipped below the national average in the climate change measures, an indication of just how seriously Goa has been taking this particular goal. Now, the State has finally got the action plan for climate change for 2020 to 2030, a good two years and three months after the decade started. One therefore doesn’t need to be surprised as to the reason why Goa dropped below the national average in this goal.
So, while the common man complains on a rather regular basis of the summer getting hotter every year, or that the monsoon is showing different patterns, or that it has rained in all the months of the year, there has been a very studied silence from the authorities. But now, there is a report and a plan that admits there have been changes in temperature and rainfall. The government that sought that action plan for climate change has to now accept it, address the issue and implement the recommendations, failing which climate change process will only escalate – it will get hotter and the monsoon will show more changes.
The report is clear that Goa’s mean annual temperature has increased by over 1°C since the beginning of the 20th century and that the increase showed a higher rise between 1990 and 2018. It also states that the mean annual rainfall in Goa has increased by 68 per cent between 1901 and 2015. If this is worrying, what the report predicts is even more disquieting. It states that the mean annual temperatures (model ensemble) in Goa may increase by around 2°C in the 2030s compared to 1901-1950 period, and further to by around 4°C by 2080s under high emission scenarios. Goa will start experiencing heat waves with temperatures above 40°C beyond the 2040s. Minimum and maximum temperatures are expected to increase and the mean annual rainfall in Goa is projected to slightly decline under high emission scenarios, which under low emission scenarios is projected to slightly increase. With much of the land in coastal areas, the talukas of Salcete, Tiswadi and Bardez are most vulnerable to flooding. This is not a fresh forecast, as a NASA study had already predicted the submergence of Mormugao if sea levels rise.
The picture that the report paints is not of a bright future, but one that is rather gloomy. That the report comes a day after the Supreme Court took a pro-environment stand regarding one of the three linear projects cutting through the Mollem forest, reinforces the need to keep the environment as the central focus in all future decision making. An interesting statement in the reports is that ‘There is no further potential to increase the forest cover of the State, however, there is a possibility to increase the green cover and increase the quality of the forest by increasing the carbon content’. This again is not some new revelation, for Herald has reported in the past that Goa is seeking to undertake mandatory afforestation programmes in other States as it lacks degraded land in the State for this. Given the circumstances under which Goa is operating, the real question that has to be pondered over is whether the climate change that has been predicted can be paused or reversed and how this can be done before it gets completely out of hand.
The report does provide a mitigation strategy that takes into account various areas (see our review section). But interestingly, the report states that in Goa which does not produce its own power, the transportation sector is the major source of emissions. This comes just as the government has been speaking of developing Goa as a logistics hub. Will the government therefore have to relook at the logistics hub plan as this will involve an increase in transportation and vehicular movement? The report does admit that the transportation sector also has the ‘maximum possibility for mitigation’ and focuses on various means to bring down emissions, which is good news for Goa if it forges ahead with a logistics hub plan, but those who drafted the report obviously had not taken a logistics hub into consideration as this was not in the State’s plans until recently.
This is a report, but the warnings on climate change that Goa has received from nature and also ignored them, have been many. These include the changes that have occurred in recent times that are leading to the formation of cyclones in the Arabian Sea, the erosion along the coast and also the monsoon floods. The State cannot disregard these any longer.
While the immediate implementation of the climate change mitigation measures has to be on the cards, the government has to also assess the situation and work on the priority areas. It may be pertinent to relook at the Goa Golden Jubilee Development Council report and juxtapose both as this report had suggested implementing conservation laws to reduce developmental pressures and activating the Biodiversity Management Committees at all levels, with powers of environmental monitoring, regulating local biodiversity use, and levying appropriate collection fees. Even without the action plan, there were enough recommendations that the government could have accepted that in turn could have reduced the climate change effects. Hopefully, the government will not ignore this action plan too.
Now that the State has the Climate Change Action Plan it possesses the weapon to safeguard the State’s very fragile ecology. Further changes in the environment will only hasten the climate change effects instead of mitigating them. This has to be understood and appreciated by the government and all future plans must be so structured that there is least negative effect on the ecology. Instead, they should be geared to improving the environment so that the climate change can be reversed. While mitigation will stop the changes, can Goa also look at reversing them? It is definitely worth an attempt.
