Rising sea level a threat to Orissa

Satavaya is a small village in coastal Orissa, which probably has zero emissions of greenhouse gases but is already paying the price of global warming. Almost half the village has been consumed by the Bay of Bengal in the last five years.

Satavaya's story has been captured in the film Climate's First Orphans by Nila Madhav, which tells the story of 20,000 homeless villagers in coastal Orissa, whose existence is being threatened by the rising sea levels.

A year after drafting the Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, Lord Nicholas Stern was in India last week, drawing the attention of India's decision makers to the risks and opportunities of climate change.

In his report, Stern had warned the global community that "climate change is a serious threat, and it demands an urgent global response... the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting".

"If we ignore the problem, the price of doing that later just shoots up," Stern said in Mumbai on Friday in a meeting with senior editors.

"India is in real danger and should insist on a target of 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050, and lead the discussions. Rich countries should take the lead in cutting emissions."

The Stern Review had concluded that climate change would affect access to water, food production, health and environment, and hundreds of people could suffer from hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding as the world warms.

If no action is taken to reduce greenhouse gases, global average temperatures could rise by 2 degrees Celsius by 2035, and eventually, by 5 degrees a year "" equivalent to the change in average temperatures from the last ice age till date.

"The melting of the Himalayan glaciers could create torrents in rainy season... In future, water table could drop faster, disrupting agriculture. These are very big risks, and need very large-scale response," said Stern, while addressing a panel discussion on the risks and opportunities of global warming in Mumbai.

He said the cost of reducing emissions "" the Stern Review had estimated the same could be limited to be 1 per cent of the global GDP each year "" appears to be a "modest insurance premium to pay for the risks".

"It's about moving to low-carbon growth. It's not about restricting growth," said Stern, who's also the IG Patel professor of economics and government and director, India Observatory at the London School of Economics.

Action on climate change will also create significant business opportunities as new markets are created for low-carbon energy technologies and low-carbon goods and services, which could be worth billions of dollars each year.

"There's great opportunity for business in adaptation and mitigation of risks, and in building bridges and roads that are robust to climate change. There's a great deal architecture can do to cope with hotter climate. If we can get zero-carbon electricity, we can get zero-carbon transport," added Stern.