Climate change impacts our one planet and all of us, and it is accelerating

2023 experienced a never before, wide spread early break up of Emperor Penguins breeding grounds in the Antarctic sea ice affecting 14 of their 66 colonies. Some lost all their chicks who either froze or drowned, not yet mature to survive the Southern Ocean. Such was the impact in just one year on this signature species found only in the Antarctic. In fact the 2023 level of the Antarctic Ice shelf reached a record low level, below the previous record low, set in 2022! Scientists estimate that 99 per cent of emperor penguins will be lost by the turn of the century!!

The Northern Pole has more severe immediate problems, with the geographically much smaller pack ice receding fast and breaking up sooner, endangering both the apex predator and its main prey. Polar Bears (only found in the Arctic) and seals play out their drama of survival on the shrinking Arctic pack ice.

The Northern polar ice masses include Greenland, the largest, and then some smaller shelves. Longyearbyen, the Northernmost town in the world, in Svalbard, Norway, has been warming at 1 to 2.7 degrees Celsius per decade over 1980-2020, twice the Arctic average and 5 to 7 times the Global average, making it the fastest warming place on the planet. The Greenland sharks who live in the waters there have an incredible lifespan of 200-500 years. So the older among them would have lived through the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Babur coming in to India in 1521, and would have started feeling the temperature changes post the first steam engine in 1712 and the ensuing industrial revolution thereafter, but are really feeling the heat in the last two decades. All this in their one life time!! They could tell us a thing or two.

But why should we care about the Antarctic and Emperor Penguin chicks and early break up of Antarctic sea ice? It’s a long way away!! Visiting both polar regions in the past few years has gotten me vastly interested in why we should.

The Antarctic ice sheet is 10x the volume of, and dwarfs the Arctic ice caps and glaciers of the world combined, though the average current annual ice loss from Antarctica is about 136 billion tons which is half of Greenland’s at about 267 billion tons, both of which contribute to sea level rise. The Antarctic pack ice has shrunk by approximately 1.76 million sq km based on the difference between the1981-2010 average maximum and the 2023 record low maximum, which is almost half of the surface area of India (3.28million sq km)

India, first One Impacted by a Perfect Storm
Sea levels along the Indian coast are rising faster than the global average and by 2050, which is now not so far away, we could see water levels rise by half a metre, from today’s levels, and the IPCC states a Global mean sea rise of 1.6m by the turn of the century. The Antarctic ice sheet alone holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by nearly 60 meters if it melted completely. A 10 per cent melt could itself mean a 6 meter rise in sea level – could the situation escalate to this by 2100?

18 per cent of India’s population lives in the 72 coastal districts of the mainland, which comprises 12 per cent of the area of the mainland – a rise in sea levels will cause huge population shifts into the hinterland from the bustling metropolises of Mumbai, Mangalore, Kochi, Chennai, Vizag, Paradip, Haldia and Kolkatta to name a few, as well as several smaller towns and villages, with storm surges, high tides, riverine bores, frequent inundations, saltwater intrusions into freshwater streams, and related disruptions for those that stay behind.

Imagine 250-300 million people being forced to migrate and the ensuing havoc on real estate, farmland, industry, infrastructure, prices of food, indebtedness, costs of rebuilding in other locations, related issues of property rights and livelihoods of erstwhile coastal residents and so on. Furthermore, this could double the density of population in selected areas, mostly in an absolutely unplanned manner, and worse still, as usual, with the economically weakest being the hardest hit. All this as we struggle to double our currently very low per capita income. Not even mentioning the loss of biodiversity and the ecological impact.

The longest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current or ACC goes around the Antarctic, connecting the Pacific, Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. This keeps cold water close to the Antarctic and prevents the warmer waters further North, from coming South and warming the Antarctic, protecting the ice shelf. A weakening of the ACC will lead to warmer waters going South, accelerating polar ice melts and rising sea levels. The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research in Goa, revealed that a warming Antarctic weakens India’s South West monsoon and a cooling Antarctic strengthens it. The North East monsoons also get similarly impacted but to a lesser extent. Shrinking Antarctic Ice warms surfaces in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian sea, weakening the South West Monsoon. Changes in the geographic spread, variability and predictability of this weakened monsoon, would cause havoc to the monsoon dependent agricultural food system, reducing growing periods, reducing crops yields and shrinking crop-able acreages, while warming could make some crop unviable, impacting 1.5 billion stomachs while also causing a reduction in the recharging of its depleted ground water. We have already started seeing some of this play out in small measure over the last 10 years.

Seemingly distant and unrelated Polar changes are in fact closely impacting Indian agriculture, leading to displacement and forced migration across cities and villages, impacting India’s food security, water resources and urban infrastructure apart from greatly impacting its human resource given the demographic “dividend”.

The Global picture Is No different
The UN estimates 40 per cent of Global population lives in what are designated as coastal areas. Imagine a displacement of over 3 billion people with rising sea levels. 

This panic will drive up our carbon footprint, higher temperatures, further impact climate patterns, coupled with less rain for crop to grow.

Agricultural scientists the world over are working on solving for semi-arid, as well as warmer growing conditions with uncertain rainfall patterns, with hybrid seeds, irrigation systems, controlled environment agriculture, and other near term solutions. However, the key is to solve the root issue of warming else, we only have a short term partial solution to an escalating and impending catastrophe.

Cooling the Poles for the Bears and the Penguins aids their survival, and ours! This is no longer a good to do, it is a must do. Let us take a deep breath, and realise we are all together in this world, and there is only one of them. The Polar Bears and the Emperor Penguins are our canaries in the coal mine. And they are dying.

We are a smart race. We put a man on the moon 56 years ago, we have over 3000 billionaires, and now a few trillionaires to boot. We’ve done a lot of talking, worked on plans with COP’s over the years, know what needs to be done, and have the smarts to grow with a shrinking carbon footprint.

We need to work, together on this one in individual and collective ways given what each of us does, as our planet’s survival depends on the weakest link! We need to curb a few egos as we have, over the millennia.

Let’s make COP 30 seriously count and be our first step of outcome based swift action. Together we win; rather, survive! Celebrate our small wins over the last year and see how outcomes can be scaled 50-100x this year and get these out in varied media to build hope, optimism and togetherness, to act positively as one.

We’ve run out of time for a great solution, now it is damage control time. The Antarctic treaty of 1959 is up for revision and auto renewal with good intent in 2048. The Arctic is currently is a place of military advancement mostly of Russia and now the US is making a pitch via Greenland. Mining and ANY commercial or military activity in the Arctic and Antarctic circles must be banned with environmentally smarter and newer ways to make us live, rather than using rare earth elements as the reason to wipe off the poles and humanity along with it.

Primarily agrarian economies, giant and smaller corporations and their related ecosystem partners in the food and forest produce fields, need to urgently up their game on emission management, aided by the rest of humanity. The energy, transportation and construction sectors needing to work at warp speed.

Goals of 2060 and 2070 do not cut it at this time. What is our goal for 2026, and then 2027? That’s what every industry across the startup to unicorn spectrum, and every government, and multilateral institution on the planet needs to focus on, as we look for working carbon smarter, wasting less, and helping nature heal our planet ever faster.

Let’s see how we are saving the Polar Bears and the Emperor Penguins. Their survival is ours!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.