Climate change challenges India

Signs accumulate, suggesting severe adaptation requirements

Jim Nuttle illustration from “America’s New Map”

India is virtually every expert’s favorite choice for becoming the global economy’s rising center of growth (production and consumption) over the foreseeable future. There are plenty of good reasons for this, number one being India’s leverage-able demographic dividend of roughly 500 million souls — the biggest single example of this economic phenomenon yet witnessed within modern globalization. Then there’s China’s apparent peaking, which puts everybody on the lookout for the Next Great Thing. Finally, there’s too much apprehension, for now, about the energy transition and the rise of AI to scope those growth trajectories with confidence (so many externalities to discover and calculate).

By comparison, for now India seems like a familiar bet — like looking at China in the 1990s and seeing nothing but potential so long as the current trajectory lasts. On that score there are very positive signs (Modi’s likely re-election and his clear vision for progress) and some negative ones (rising Hindu nationalism opportunistically stoked by Modi himself), but those are part and parcel of the process (strong leaders directing a rise use everything at their disposal).

The biggest threat to India’s rise? That would have to be climate change.

Why?

First off, India chose — for years and years — to go the Gandhi/Jefferson route of keeping the village the center of society (as opposed to the troublesome city) and agriculture the primary source of employment (45% of India’s labor). By way of comparison, you’d have to go back to roughly the 1870s to find America at that level of labor concentration on farms. While Modi is currently in high-Hamilton mode regarding urbanization and industrialization, shifting all that labor off the land and into the city workforce will be a huge challenge (hence the temptation to leverage unifying Hindu nationalism).

Right now, India’s urban population is just over one-third of its total population. Again, by way of comparison, America was 35% urbanized around 1890.

Now, granted, everything moves faster today. I’m just making these points to suggest how fast India must move its cultural/developmental “clock” ahead to achieve serious liftoff in today’s global economy. Under Modi, India has been reeling through the years, stowing away the time.

As for gathering up the tears, climate change seems primed to make the remaining journey a deeply stressing one. Some recent examples I have come across: