Climate Change and Human Insecurity in South Asia By Naeem Akram

“Human security means, first, safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease and repression. And second, it means protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life” (UNDP 1994; Page 23) In the context of South Asian countries, there are at least two components of human security that are likely to be affected severely by climate change ---- food security and health security

Climate Change and South Asia Climate Change Vulnerability Index 2010, computed by Maple-croft, out of 170 Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan were ranked as 1st, 2nd, 4th and 16th most vulnerable countries in the planet Temperatures are expected to increase by o C by 2030 and by 1-7 o C Global Sea level is expected to rise by 3-16 cm by 2030 and 7-50 cm by 2070 (IPCC, 2007)

---- South Asian economies have a low capacity for disaster management. During flood 2010 in Pakistan, around 2,000 people were reported to have died and an equal number of people injured; a figure that is extremely high compared to only 20 that died in the worst flooding of Australia (Asian Development Bank, 2010).

Food Security and Climate Change “food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” World Food Summit, FAO (1996)

Continued…. Changes in temperature, precipitation and frequency and severity of extreme events like droughts, floods, and wind storms negatively affect the crop and livestock yields. However, carbon dioxide is essential for plant production; it’s rising concentrations due to climate change (greenhouse gas emission) may be helpful in enhancing the agricultural productivity (Adams et al, 1998).

Climate change affect food security both the channels of availability and accessibility. On one hand, it will affect the food security through the dimension of food availability through shrinking of production and arable land of food commodities. On the other hand, reduction in production and supply of food items has an inflationary impact. Even if the reduced production is not large enough to cause non-availability, food inflation severely affects the affordability of vulnerable population; it results in affecting their accessibility to food markets. Heat waves across the Indian Sub-Continent during 2005 resulted in reducing the agricultural yields by 10 to 40 percent of the harvests for that year (Mahmood, 2008). Continued….

Almost all the South Asian countries, except India, are net food importers and food insecurity exists in many South Asian countries. It is estimated that around 40 percent of the world’s hungry population lives in South Asia (IFPRI, 2010). State of food security worsened due to decline in agricultural growth and persistent increase in population over the past several years (Mittal and Sethi, 2009). Continued….

Over the years many developing countries have made significant progress regarding hunger reduction, however, South Asian countries still lag far behind in food security. For example, Armenia and Chile are able to achieve MDG 1; i.e. halving extreme poverty and hunger by Peru, Ethiopia, and many other developing countries are on track. But, South Asian countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan lag far behind in comparison to the rest of the world (FAO, 2010). Continued….

In India, since 1950s monsoonal rainfall has decreased by approximately 5 to 8 percent and this pattern is expected to become more intense, longer, and more widespread. It resulted in droughts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh in India and Sindh and Baluchistan provinces in Pakistan. It is noteworthy here that heat wave in subcontinent in 2005 has also reduced the agricultural yields in affected parts by around 10 to 40 percent of the harvest of that year. Continued….

Health Security and Climate Change