On the eve of the opening of Cop29, Baku released the India Climate Report 2024 on the phenomena recorded in the first nine months of the year. Up to 3,238 people lost their lives in the country due to floods, landslides and heat waves, an increase of 18%. The highest number of days of abnormal weather was recorded in Madhya Pradesh, and the record number of victims in Kerala.
Delhi (/Agencies) – In India, in the first nine months of 2024, only 19 of 274 days did not record any extreme weather events. This is revealed by Indian Climate Report 2024 edited by the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) of Delhi and the Down To Earth portal published yesterday on the eve of the opening in Baku, Azerbaijan, of COP29, the UN world conference on climate change. The statistics are based on seven extreme weather events: lightning and storms; torrential rains, floods and landslides; heat waves; cold waves; showers; cyclones and snowfall.
Up to 3,238 people lost their lives due to these phenomena in 2024, compared to 2,755 in the same period in 2022: an increase of 18%. Damaged agricultural land is also growing: 3.2 million hectares, an increase of 74% compared to 1.84 million hectares damaged in 2022. In addition, 235,862 houses and buildings were destroyed and some 9,457 livestock died.
For India, 2024 was an extreme year, with a temperature or rainfall record broken almost every month. “This frequency is overwhelming the most vulnerable populations, who do not have the resources to adapt to this unstoppable cycle of loss and damage,” commented CSE Director General Sunita Narain.
Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of extreme weather days (176) among states and union territories. “Kerala recorded the highest number of victims, 550, followed by Madhya Pradesh (353) and Assam (256),” the authors noted in a press release about their analysis. The largest cropped area affected (more than 60%) was in Maharashtra and the largest number of houses damaged by extreme weather events was in Andhra Pradesh.
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