Day 2 Main Plenary | Climate Crisis: What Will It Take To Deal With A Deadlier Pandemic?
Channel: Sankalp Forum
Date: 17/11/2020

The year 2020 has been an unprecedented and disquieting one for mankind with the COVID-19 pandemic adding to a ceaseless list of global impediments in the form of climatic disruptions which have been witnessed worldwide. The rapid increase in the Earth’s surface temperature, forest fires, melting of glaciers, rising sea levels, floods, droughts, heatwaves etc. continue to paralyze the very functioning of local communities, regions, nations and economic ecosystems across the globe.

In addition to recording some of the hottest months since 1880, the first quarter of 2020 has also witnessed the devastating, widespread and recurring forest fires in Australia and the West Coast of the United States to the catastrophic floods in Indonesia & North Eastern India and the record heatwave observed in Siberia.

Countries in the Global South are much more vulnerable to these potential threats and the climate adaptation costs for developing countries in total could scale as high as US$ 250-500 billion per year by 2050 if adequate climate mitigation measures are not put in place at the earliest.