Sustainable Development Goals and Disaster Risk Reduction, Targets and Challenges for India

Abstract

Climate change is frequently occurring throughout the world. It is significantly altering the broad contours of global climate. The continuous rise in greenhouse gas emissions and the consequent global warming is causing glaciers to melt faster, leading to a rise in sea levels and more intense heat-waves. This is gradually altering weather patterns in different parts of the world, resulting in a significant increase in the frequency and scale of climate-related disasters. The formulation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015 marked a watershed in the global effort to combat the challenges posed by climate change. SDGs have outlined a fifteen-year comprehensive global action plan to address the impact of climate change, especially those leading to a rise in climate-related disasters. The Sustainable Development Goal number 13 (SDG-13) categorically states that the international community will have to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 towards climate-related disaster mitigation measures alone. SDG-13 is especially significant for India, as it ranks sixth most vulnerable country to climate change impact in the Global Climate Risk Index 2018. This paper attempts to analyse the commitments made by India towards reducing the emission of greenhouse gas emissions in its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the challenges and policy hurdles and bottlenecks India faces towards achieving its SDG-13 related targets by 2030. The gradual rise in climate and weather-related disaster incidents makes it imperative and urgent for India to initiate institutional steps to combat this threat and strengthen its legislative framework. The unprecedented flood incidents in India’s prominent cities in Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in recent years have shown their growing vulnerability to climate-related disasters, especially floods. The paper also tries to highlight the institutional weaknesses in India’s disaster management strategy and offers a new ‘Urban Floods Disaster Management’ strategy to strengthen the capability of Indian cities to combat climate-related disasters. It is based on an in-depth empirical analysis of the SDG targets, the text of the international agreement reached at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, the NDCs committed by India to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33–35% by 2030 from the 2005 level and the official policy documents tabled in Indian Parliament on climate change. The official steps initiated by India towards reducing carbon emissions and achieving its NDC targets, the information personally collected during Kashmir floods of September 2014 as a field correspondent have also been studied and analysed. India urgently needs to put in place a new institutional roadmap to combat climate-related natural disasters, restructure its disaster governance strategy and expedite efforts to implement the SDG-13 related targets by 2030.