Developing sustainability during climate change

Rajbir Saha

(rajbirsaha1995@gmail.com)

Sustainable development, in recent times, is a global issue on which there is wide agreement. The Brundtland Report defines sustainable development as: "To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". This definition is mostly accepted as it recommends the concept of 'sustainable development. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCNNR) declares and confirms through the World Conservation Strategy report (1980) that the social, economic and ecological factors must be considered to carry out sustainable development. As climate change is the greatest challenge to sustainable development, Effectual climate strategies must be considered to make regional and national development processes more sustainable. Otherwise, the different consequences of climate change, the responses of climate strategy, and related socio-economic development will, in turn, affect adversely the ability and opportunities of the countries to accomplish their targets of sustainable development. Especially, the technological and socio-economic features of different ways will adversely affect emissions, the rate, impacts and vastness of climate change, the ability to adjust and the capacity to alleviate.

The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 guided to Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), which founded the framework to stabilize the greenhouse gases eventually in the atmosphere, by identifying the common but individualized accountabilities and respective abilities, and social and economic conditions. The Convention was enforced in 1994. Later on, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol came into effect in 2005 and reaffirmed the importance of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere concerning sustainable development principles. The protocol formulated guidelines and rules concerning the extent to which an industrialized country involved should cut down the rate of its emissions of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFC). The Kyoto Protocol does not direct mandatorily the developing countries cut down the emissions of their greenhouse gases. About 700 million people in rural India depend largely on the climate-sensitive sectors: agriculture, fisheries and forests, and natural resources like water, grasslands, mangroves, coastal areas and biodiversity for their maintenance and livelihoods. Climate change and its negative impacts will gradually decrease the adaptive capacity of the forest dwellers, dry-land farmers, nomadic shepherds and fisher folk.

The indispensable natural sources––air, water and soil––for living on earth have been dwindling at an alarming rate. Behind the impending water crisis in India, there lie plenty of factors: increasing demand for drinking water, inequality in regional distribution, lack of appropriate framework for just use, impotent knowledge and resources, major changes in land use, long-term decline of water level and rising salinity and pollution. India is vulnerable to the vagaries of weather conditions and climate change though it has huge agricultural lands, and steps for sustainable development. India has to bring the comprehensive growth into effect widely including rapid labour releasing agricultural growth, required employment creation, the reduction of poverty, improvement of social sectors –– education and health— and women empowerment to combat the challenges posed by those situations. About these improvements, we should learn from our neighbouring country, China, where there is equitable distribution of income through broad-based, high and labour-releasing agricultural growth, ready-at-hand infrastructure, higher rate of literacy and best-in-class skills, incentives for the foundation of business firms in rural areas, and quick and easy access to credit and inputs for the poor section of society altogether which are necessary for a developing country. Women should be empowered through the substitution of the 'Life-Cycle Approach' of the girl child with the main objective of marriage and motherhood for the 'Capability Approach'––as propagated by the Nobel laureate Indian economist, Amartya Sen –– where the girl child's contributions both in economic and social terms are given due recognition. All measures and initiatives related to the girl child, therefore, call for urgent and thorough review by the concerned authority to promote the status of the girl child as an asset rather than a burden just like conditional cash and non-cash transfer and so on. Collaborative and continued campaigns are a must to combat the challenges posed by climate change and its negative impacts. To handle and carry out a solution to the problems of water scarcity and the decreasing level of groundwater table, the following call for urgent measures to be initiated. Practices of groundwater conservation renovating dams, recharge shafts, farm ponds, injection wells and contour trenching, detaining surface run-off at elevations and, at the same time, surface water conservation techniques with modernised catchments, Implementing rooftop rainwater harvesting and threshing floors by giving proper training and creating awareness among the masses for water conservation. The active participation of the Gram Panchayat/Village Health and Sanitation Committee in operation, maintenance, and water quality surveillance can bring about a grand success as they did the National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Project.

The most effective means to discourse climate change is the adaptation of a measure for sustainable development by transferring it to technologies environmentally sustainable and the improvement of energy efficiency, reforestation, forest conservation, renewable energy, water conservation, etc. The most important factor to developing countries is controlling the availability of their natural and socio-economic systems to the assumed climate change. Other developing countries, including India, will combat the challenge of boosting alleviation and adaptation tactics, bearing the result of such an effort and its significance for economic development. India is a vast developing country which has about two-thirds of the population depending only on the climate-sensitive sectors: agriculture, fisheries and forests. The assumed climate change under different situations will probably leave effects on water supply, food production, livelihoods and biodiversity. We have, therefore, a consequential scope in scientific advancement and international understanding to foster alleviation and adaptation which needs advanced scientific understanding, networking, capacity building, and widely acknowledged consultation processes. We can carry out sustainable development successfully by strategically directing all our initiatives to our targeted goal.