Kota Sriraj
Climate change aided by extreme conditions such as the El Nino phenomenon, failed monsoons or unseasonal rains, are causing disturbing calamities. The ongoing drought across many parts of the country is an example. States like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are currently facing severe drought conditions.
Soaring temperatures and acute water shortages have made the situation worse. Though the Indian Metereological Department has predicted above-normal monsoon this year, succor in the form of rains for the drought-hit States is still two agonising months away.
Latur in Maharashtra is the worst affected among the entire drought-hit regions, prompting the State and the Union Government to seek support from Indian Railways, to send a relief train carrying five lakh litres of water to Latur. The initiative taken by the authorities to combat drought situation is commendable, but the fact remains that, though India experiences numerous calamities such as droughts every year, the method of meeting these challenges has not changed much.
Authorities have a passive and template-driven response that is simply inadequate to counter the scale of extreme events taking place. The Union Government and the States are unable to predict and forecast the occurrence of disasters, as a result of which people are bearing the brunt.
Decades of inconsistent strategies amid policy failures have led to an absence of a robust mechanism to counter and mitigate climate change in India. Inept governance on issues pertaining to environment has often amplified the impact of climate change and resulted in events such as man-made droughts. This has also posed serious threats to water and food security in India. The lack of a cohesive policy planning and implementation, leading to calamities, is becoming commonplace.
For instance, Maharashtra has the highest number of dams in India and the State records the highest expenditure on irrigation. Despite this, it is dependent on rains and has recurring droughts. The scarcity of water resources is further aggravated by the agricultural policy of the State which encourages growing of water-guzzling crops such as sugarcane.
In the face of a rapidly deteriorating environment and mounting threats of climate change, adaptation is necessary to prevent and mitigate climate change impacts. Adaptive governance can help the Government to respond better to challenging situations and establish sustainable solutions for the environmental problems facing India. Adaptive governance facilitates a continuous problem-solving process with which institutional arrangements and ecological knowledge are tested and revised in a dynamic, ongoing, self-organised process.
This reduces uncertainty by improving the knowledge base for decision-making and ensures stability in policymaking. Additionally, adaptive governance also enables the practice of principles of learning and flexibility in public policy process amidst complex socio-ecological conditions.
Adaptive governance focuses more on the impact of climate change on social systems. This method is different from the current practices of governance, which is based on mitigation efforts. Through the flexible approach of adaptive governance, the Government can discover ways in which institutional arrangements can be evolved to satisfy the needs and desires of the community in a changing environment. Society can gradually acclimatise to climate change provided a robust governance platform exists that is able to ensure a stable and tested policies and adaptive governance facilitates the same.
Adaptive governance also encourages communication between different levels of local, regional, national and international stakeholders, this enables better handling of available resources. This ‘bottom up’ strategy, focussing on community-based actions, provides a much-needed alternative to the ‘top down’ approach.
In fact, adaptive governance has been successfully implemented in a number of local societies around the world, to build their ability to adapt to climate change and its associated impacts such as extreme weather and altering plant biodiversities. This form of governance has enabled many countries to tackle climate change by strengthening initiative at the local level for a more effective result.
Climate change and its impacts are occurring at a rapid pace. The Government must not rely on adaptive governance alone but combine the same with initiatives such as watershed management, agro-forestry and rainwater harvesting.
Furthermore, the Government, as a part of the community-based climate change mitigation programmes, should engage with people and ensure that the local community is given the ownership responsibility for its environment and is sensitised for its well-being. India needs to tap the potential of adaptive governance to effectively slow down climate change.