Climate change

I have had a career that has spanned investment banking, public policy, and academia, in the early phase of my working life. As you can imagine, academia was the least, and investment banking the most, posh.

While the rhetoric of collective responsibility to achieve “ambitious outcomes” in terms of climate action to address the “climate emergency” stands questioned in the 25th Conference of Parties, the grim realities of the inequalities between countries and the evasion of responsibilities and commitments by the developed countries point towards the fundamental role and continued importance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that remains wider in its scope and broader in its vision than the Paris Agreement. The developed countries are also seeking to manipulate the science–policy interface in an attempt to sideline the equity and climate justice-related perspectives of the developing countries.

The seasonal trends in climate variables and their impact on rice and wheat yields in Punjab are assessed using daily data of temperature and rainfall by district from 1986 to 2015. A significant rise in mean temperature is observed in both the rice- and wheat-growing periods. Rainfall during the rice-growing period has decreased 7% annually over the past 30 years. Significant climate change will lower the rice yield by 8.10% by 2080 and wheat by 6.51%. To mitigate the effects of climate change, it is necessary to adopt climate-resilient crop choices and irrigation practices and technologies.