A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that four Indian cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Surat and Chennai — located on India's coast— will be severely threatened due to rise in sea level, The Times of India has reported.
According to the newspaper, the report states that several cities in north India will also face severe water crisis due to the melting of Himalayan glaciers by the end of the century.
The report's co-author, Anjal Prakash, noted that around 240 million people in the entire Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) regions encompassing the mountains of central, south and inner Asia would be affected due to changes in cryosphere, impacting water flow timing and water availability.
The sea level rise is expected to affect over 1.4 billion people globally by 2100, according to the report, which was released on September 25 by the United Nations (UN) body.
The four cities are among the 45 across the world where an increase in the sea level by even 50 cm will lead to flooding. According to the IPCC report, the extreme sea level events that used to occur once a century earlier will occur every year by mid-century in many regions.
The increase in warming of oceans and the rise in sea level combined would also affect marine life, and could lead to widespread death of marine population, which in turn would lead to a seafood crisis and cyclones, according to the report.
The report, which has referenced nearly 7,000 research papers according to the newspaper, states that with the accelerating rate at which the ice is melting, the sea levels are rising faster than the pace previously estimated.
Alarmingly, the IPCC report warned that even if the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are reduced and global warming is limited to below 2 degree Celsius, sea levels are expected to rise by over 30-60 cm globally.
However, according to Hoesung Lee, chair of IPCC, if the emissions are reduced sharply, the "consequences for people and their livelihoods will still be challenging, but potentially more manageable for those who are most vulnerable".
According to the newspaper, Prakash feels that the solution is to adapt and bring about policy changes and planning to "create climate resilient infrastructure".
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