The great leap ahead... off the climate change cliff

The TLDR: As we noted last week, the government’s own assessment concludes that India will be uninhabitable very soon due to severe climate change. But the same government is ignoring its own predictions—and its behaviour in recent months offers great cause for worry.

Where we are headed

To recap last week’s explainer, the first-ever assessment of India’s climate change future offers a bleak forecast: If we do absolutely nothing to curb carbon emissions, our average temperature will increase by 2.7º C in the next 50 years—and hit 4.4º C by the end of this century!

As ProPublica notes, by 2100, temperatures could rise to the point that just going outside for a few hours in parts of India “will result in death even for the fittest of humans.” Also: “heat waves and humidity will become so extreme there that people without air conditioning will simply die.” Yeah, it’s grim.

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