Hit hardest by disasters -- Calcutta POV

Telegraph (UK): Sumit Hazra, a seven-year-old living in a slum in east Calcutta, has no clue about the global climate change or its possible impact on his future. Neither has his 75-year-old grandfather, who had migrated to the city in the early 70s, though he feels that the climate in the city has changed drastically over the last decade or so.

Heavy rain and waterlogging, triggered by climate change, will affect slum-dwellers badly. A Telegraph picture

Not only Sumit and his grandfather, but hardly anyone among the approximately 1.5 million-plus slum-dwellers in the city has any idea about the impact of climate change on his or her life, though these residents are the most vulnerable to its effects.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently said that climate change is very likely to increase the frequency and magnitude of extreme weather events and the poor will be particularly affected. Climate change will further reduce access to drinking water, affect the health of the poor and pose a threat to their existence.

The poor people living in Calcutta slums are no exception. A recent study carried out by a city-based NGO, supported by Unicef, has found out that natural disasters in the city — for example, flood-like situations and heavy rain leading to waterlogging and cyclone — are most likely to impact the habitats of the urban poor.

“If one makes a SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis of the city with respect to facing disasters, what really stands out is its unplanned nature and the fact that nearly one-third of the population (about 1.5 million out of a total population of 4.6 million in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation area, according to the 2001 data) live in slums or in slum-like conditions, and are thus many times more vulnerable to potential disasters,” concludes the report.

Waterlogging mainly affects slum areas; most of the people who suffer from malaria, dengue and now, chikungunya, happen to be slum-dwellers. Experts suggest that the best way to address the climate change impacts on the poor is by integrating adaptation responses — steps to adapt with the changing scenario — into development planning. But, at least in Calcutta , all these “suggestions” have mostly remained confined to the four walls of five-star conference rooms and have hardly been followed up.

Sumit’s grandfather, when asked what would happen in case of a disaster triggered by climate change, said: “Babu, bhagabaner dayay to atodin amra beche roilam… oi bhabei thakbo (Sir, we have survived so far because of the mercy of god; we will continue like that).”

Jayanta Basu