India Makes Way for G20 Summit By Displacing Homeless People

What left many grumbling at the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP26) held in November in Glasgow was rich countries like the United States and those in the European Union striking down the Glasgow Loss and Damage Facility, a body created to address how to compensate developing countries for climate change-related losses and damages. Wealthy countries have been found to be most responsible for causing the climate crisis and face litigation as well as ensuing liabilities and payouts. 

But the demand to recognize loss and damage remains alive. A good indication being many climate-vulnerable developing countries have referenced loss and damage in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit NDCs to detail their national action to address global climate change, including steps to adapt to a changing climate and the form of financial assistance needed to undertake such action. 

Small-Income and Developing Countries Hard Hit

A report published in October, 2021 found one-third of the 250 NDCs that were analyzed explicitly mentioned loss and damage. Most were from small-island developing states and least developed countries in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. The report was supported by the European Research Council’s Politics of Climate Change Loss and Damage (CCLAD) project. 

“NDCs are political documents and not just technical submissions [under the Paris Agreement],” said Elisa Calliari, a co-author of the report. 

Developed countries tend to focus on mitigation action, like the deployment of renewable energy. But that hasn’t been the case for the majority of the world’s states.

“Developing countries have pushed hard for the inclusion of adaptation in NDCs because, for them, this is more of a priority than mitigation,” Calliari pointed out. “So you can see the politics.”

For people living in an island nation like Sri Lanka, “key loss and damage impacts are felt in food systems and other vulnerable sectors, like the coastal and marine sector and water resources. These impacts have already resulted in migration interlinked with or induced by climate change among vulnerable communities,” said Vositha Wijenayake, executive director of the SLYCAN Trust, a non-profit think tank working in Asia, Africa and Europe. Its work focuses on climate change, biodiversity and ecosystems, sustainable development, and social justice. 

Sri Lanka is classified as a lower-middle income/developing country. Given that it is also an island, its exposure to climate-related risks is high. These two factors make it extremely vulnerable to climate impacts and the ability to withstand them.

So, Wijenayake added, it is important for countries most vulnerable to climate change that loss and damage is a “key component” in addressing climate change processes, both negotiations and climate action. And this is why Sri Lanka was among the first countries to have a separate section allocated to loss and damage commitments included in its first NDCs submitted in September 2016. Building on this, the updated NDC of Sri Lanka submitted last July includes a separate section on loss and damage.

Interestingly, the report says upper-income countries like Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay also have cited loss and damage in their NDCs. 

And outside of NDCs, many developing countries have explicitly stated loss- and damage-related demands. For instance, consider India’s environment ministry laying out ahead of COP26, “There should be a compensation for expenses incurred, and it should be borne by developed nations.”

How to Fund Loss and Damage

A question that usually rears its head with respect to addressing loss and damage is how to “operationalize” it, or what processes and institutions could be set up at the global and national levels to address loss and damage. 

“[One way would be] to look at NDCs for a bottom-up approach to understand how countries themselves are looking at loss and damage,” Calliari said. 

Of the NDCs that explicitly mention loss and damage, around half specify loss- and damage-related responses and initiatives like data gathering, analysis and assessment, and institutional capacities to address loss and damage. For example, Sri Lanka’s NDC has a whole section on loss and damage. It mentions strengthening its weather and climate forecasting systems, plus improving data management to record loss and damage. Meanwhile, Honduras’ NDC puts forth a “gender-responsive agricultural insurance mechanism for loss and damage.”

Wijenayake also stressed “inclusive and participatory processes,” in which the voices of those vulnerable to climate change are taken into account in the national and international policy-making processes. As is “ground-level implementation,” she added. 

And so, country-specific NDCs could potentially be a good starting point to determine how to put mechanisms in place to address loss and damage on a global scale. 

Getting Polluting Countries to Pay

The other gap that exists today is how finance can be mobilized to fund efforts that compensate for climate change-related loss and damage. A recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute offers potential solutions. 

The researchers propose finance should be provided based on the following:

• Solidarity,
• “polluter pays” principle that is based on “historical responsibility,” and 
• the established notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (or CBDR-RC, for short) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

CBDR-RC means that while climate change is a shared concern, rich countries with a history of emitting carbon—like the United States and those in Europe—have a greater responsibility to take climate action than the poorer countries.  

The “polluter pays” principle has only been used to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for environmental destruction. It implies more strict liabilities than “historical responsibilities,” which outlines broad principles based on past emissions. 

The authors stress a combined approach that deploys the principles of solidarity, polluter pays and historical responsibility, as well as using the framework of CBDR-RC, to finance loss and damage. 

A strictly liability-based approach would be “politically infeasible and communities cannot wait for years to prove the liability,” said Zoha Shawoo, an associate scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute as well as one of the authors of the SEI report. 

The research team also looked at methods of recovery and rehabilitation that communities would need after financing efforts to cover losses and damages. Those efforts can include planning the relocation of communities, assisting with migration and providing affected people with alternative livelihoods. Here, too, NDCs could help with granular details like national-level entities and processes that could assist local communities with issues like displacement and loss of livelihood. 

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India. She had reported for Toward Freedom from COP26 in Glasgow.

Kastura Chougule couldn’t sleep despite having worked 15 hours in the field.

“I was exhausted, but something didn’t feel right,” she recollected. It was half past midnight. Small, shriveled and in her early 70s, Chougule managed to muster enough strength to stretch her muscles and quickly walk toward the adjoining tin shanty.

Her son, Vijay, was sitting on the floor, covering his entire forehead with his hands.

“What’s wrong, son? What’s bothering you?” she asked in the vernacular Marathi language.

Vijay, in his mid-30s, didn’t reply, nor was he aware she had entered the room. After she asked multiple times, he replied, “Go to sleep. It’s too late.” It was the last his mother would see him. By nine in the morning, family members wondered why Vijay hadn’t woken up yet. By the time they had rushed to the house, Vijay, a stone cutter from the western Indian state of Maharashtra’s Jambhali village, was found hanging inside his shanty.

Economy Grows, While Poor Left Behind

Vijay was one of 153,052 people who died by suicide in 2020. A year later, this number increased by 7 percent to 164,033 suicides, as per India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) which releases suicide figures every year. This marked the highest annual count since 1967, the year the NCRB began recording. India also witnessed a 10 percent increase in suicides between 2019 and 2020.

Last month, however, India became the fifth-largest economy, overtaking the United Kingdom. However, a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report released in the same week found India ranked 132nd out of 191 countries on the Human Development Index. It has slipped to two spots since 2020.

Moreover, for the first time, daily wage laborers comprised more than 25 percent of suicide cases. In 2014, they made up only 12 percent of suicides, which means this portion of the Indian population’s suicides has increased by 113 percent.

Within the first month of India’s nationwide lockdown starting March 2020, 122 million people lost their jobs, estimated the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private company. Daily wage laborers and small traders comprised roughly 75 percent. A report found that a year of the lockdown pushed 230 million Indians into poverty. By the end of 2020, 15 million workers were still out of jobs, including Vijay.

‘We Never Imagined Life Would Break Him So Much’

“Ever since the lockdown, he was home most of the time. Moreover, construction work came to a halt in most places, which further affected his work,” says his father, Shrirang, who’s in his early 80s now.

Vijay left behind his sledge hammer, which weighs much more than what Kastura can lift.

“This is my son’s last sign,” she says tearfully. She spends most of the time staring at the ten kilograms (22 pounds) hammer.

“Suicide was the last thing he would contemplate,” she says. “For all of us, he was a support system, and we never imagined life would break him so much.”

What Drove Vijay to Suicide?

A daily wage earner, he earned roughly 300 Indian Rupees ($3.50) for 10 hours of work breaking stones and boulders. He would hoist his hammer at least 4,000 times a day.

“For 6 to 7 months, he didn’t get enough work, which stressed him tremendously,” said his niece, Manisha, 22. When India lifted its nationwide lockdown after 67 days, Vijay found a few days’ work. “While using a tile cutter machine, he met with an accident and lost one of his fingers,” Manisha said.

This was a major blow as he found it extremely difficult to work now. “The task of breaking boulders using a mere hammer comes with no security, and he ended up permanently injuring one of his fingers a year before,” Shrirang said.

Still, Vijay tried breaking stones but couldn’t work with his previous intensity. Further, local lockdowns brought an end to whatever bare minimum work he got.

To undergo surgery for his fingers, he took out a medical loan of 200,000 Rupees ($2,500). “After this surgery, he wasn’t the same. He rarely spoke,” Manisha said. Two months later, he was diagnosed with severe dengue which permanently broke him.

“A few days before the suicide, he told me, ‘What’s the point of living now?’” Shrirang recounted, adding he tried every possible way to convince Vijay not to give up. “I even told him I would help him start a new business.”

‘A Much Larger Problem’

The World Inequality Report 2022 mentioned the top 10 percent in India hold 57 percent of the national wealth, while the bottom 50 percent merely own 13 percent. “India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite,” the report remarked.

“The stark inequality talks of a much larger problem,” says Amol Naik, a lawyer who is a member of All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). “With the rapid increase in privatization, many public schools, hospitals and other important institutions that serve the poor have been completely destroyed. Moreover, with the rising inflation, the daily wage earners are caught in a tremendous debt cycle, with no support system.”

Further, in 2021, climate change impacts such as floods, heat waves, cyclones, landslides and other disasters have made more than 5 million hectares of land (12.3 million acres) unusable, pushing more people into poverty.

Inadequate Mental Healthcare

In September 2021, Vishal Ugale told his sister that he wanted to rest for a while, so that he could leave for work in the evening. However, he never went to work.

The Ugale family had gathered to celebrate an auspicious occasion at 5:30 p.m.

“We were all dialing Vishal to start the auspicious ceremony, but he wouldn’t take our calls,” recalled his mother, Vimal Ugale. No one knew what exactly had happened.

“A few hours later, it was found that Vishal died by suicide in a public veterinary hospital,” said his sister, Savita Khondre.

A resident of Jambhali village in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, Vishal tended furnaces in factories and textile mills. “This work often affected him so much that he drank alcohol occasionally to forget his stress,” said Savita. “But since COVID, he started drinking quite frequently.”

Ugale, a farmworker in her early 70s, said she never knew the reason behind his suicide.

“Every few weeks, he would frustratingly say, ‘Why was I born in this household? I don’t want to live anymore,’” she recounted.

Ugale often spent hours talking to Vishal, asking what help he needed. But he wouldn’t say a word.

The Taboo of Mental-Health Care

Vishal became more stressed after COVID induced lockdowns, said Khondre. Jambhali, which has a population of roughly 5,000 people, reported more than seven suicides in 2021, as per official records from the village sub-center. A sub-center is the first point of public healthcare for community members.

“Mostly people talk to us about physical illnesses,” said medical officer Dr. Vasanti Patil, under whose care this village falls. “They never mention mental-health problems because it is still considered a taboo in the villages.”

During the lockdown, she observed deteriorating mental health among several villagers, especially the ones who owed loans. “There are so many cases of rising debt, and with dwindling work during COVID, many people were stressed, which further affected them,” she said.

For a population of 1.3 billion people, India has 9,000 psychiatrists and 1,000 psychologists, as per research published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry. That comes to 1 mental-health professional for every 130,000 Indians.

“Many villages don’t have adequate mental healthcare facilities, leaving people alone, further pushing them [to] the brink of suicide,” shared Naik, who has organized several protests in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district and also accompanied many protests that marched to Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, to draw attention to the plight of farm workers and daily-wage laborers. “During these protests, almost everyone talks of the rising stress and the rapidly increasing cost of living.”

During the first wave of COVID, India witnessed a large-scale reverse migration, whereby workers returned to villages because they either had lost jobs or had no work. Many daily-wage laborers walked hundreds of miles to reach their villages.

“However, there wasn’t much work in the fields, and many people had no option to earn enough, further stressing them. During this time, the cases of substance abuse increased rapidly,” says community healthcare worker Bharti Kamble.

In her Bolakewadi village of Maharashtra, over half of the villagers migrate to India’s financial capital—Mumbai, working as daily-wage laborers. “All of these factors impacted almost everyone’s mental health.”

Ugale still thinks about what affected her son so much. She has spent several hours talking to Vishal’s friends. But, so far, she hasn’t found anything concrete.

“He left us with many questions, to which we won’t be able to find answers in an entire lifetime.”

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or know someone who needs help, please call India’s 24-hour, toll-free national mental-health helpline dubbed “Kiran” at 1 (800) 599-0019 or any of these helplines near you. For the United States, dial 988.

Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.

Hasina Hajukhan never imagined that returning to her maternal house would turn into a near-death experience. In April, the 28-year-old was seven months pregnant, and her medical parameters were normal. “I was taking extra care to ensure no complications during childbirth,” she told Toward Freedom.

As is customary in many parts of India, pregnant women return to their parents’ homes to give birth. When Hajukhan first reached her mother’s house in Ganeshwadi village of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, she felt nauseated. “It was April’s final week, and I couldn’t even breathe properly,” she recounted. A heat wave had taken hold. “The climate was the stark opposite of what it was in my husband’s village.” In Ganeshwadi, things kept getting complicated with the rising heat. “Every day, I was breathless and would feel dizzy.”

Using a desk fan at the highest speed didn’t help, as it just circulated more hot air. An air conditioning system was something her family could not afford. The tin sheet roof would get extremely hot. During this crucial time, Hajukhan needed rest. However, she spent most of her day stepping out to gasp for cold air. In May’s final week, things got worse. “I felt as if I was going to die,” she recalled, teary-eyed.

Immediately, her mother dialed Ranjana Gavade, an accredited social health activist (ASHA worker), part of a community of 1 million women healthcare workers appointed for every 1,000 people in India’s villages. ASHAs are responsible for more than 70 healthcare tasks, with a particular focus on maternal and child health.

“I was worried looking at her rapidly deteriorating health and informed my colleagues.” Upon their instructions, Gavade called a government ambulance and swiftly took her to the district hospital, 33 kilometers (20.5 miles) away. Hajukhan gave birth to underweight twins. Her troubles still hadn’t ended when she was discharged after three days. For a month since then, Hajukhan has been trying to ensure her twins gain weight, but all efforts have failed. As a result, they weren’t administered the necessary Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG vaccine used against tuberculosis), Hepatitis B, and Polio vaccines.

The Kolhapur district, where Hajukhan lives, has been reporting recurring floods, heat waves, incessant rainfall, and hailstorms triggered by climate change. She said everything would have been normal had she not returned to her parents’ home to give birth in the heat waves. “My children wouldn’t have had to live such a dangerous life,” she said.

Like in the village of Ganeshwadi, climate change impacts have been delaying children’s immunization schedules throughout India, making them vulnerable to diseases. Research has found that if a child belonged to a district highly vulnerable to climate change, the odds of stunting rose by 32 percent, low weight by 45 percent, anemia by 63 percent and acute malnutrition by 42 percent. An analysis by global nonprofit Save the Children found that, globally, 774 million children are living in poverty and at a high risk of climate-related disasters. Weather disasters ranging from floods to droughts prevent children from obtaining nourishment, causing low weight, and these disasters put a break on children receiving vaccinations on time. Their weakened immune systems, as a result of a lack of proper nourishment in crisis times, make them vulnerable to other diseases. Being sick can halt the necessary immunizations, and these delays have led to a rise in epidemics and diseases.

How Floods Impact Universal Immunization

Snehal Kamble, 24, a resident of Maharashtra’s flood-prone Arjunwad village, remembers the year 2019 in meticulous detail. “A day before the floods, I was preparing to go to my parent’s house.” Five months pregnant, she was looking for iron folic acid tablets. “Instead, all of us went to a flood relief camp,” she recounted. From there, she moved to another relief camp within a few days, as the water rose further. “During this time, I was worried about my house and belongings,” she said. She fell sick and was away from home for 15 days. “Those were the most difficult days of my life,” she shared. Then in January 2020, she gave birth to a boy named Sangarsh, who has often fallen sick. “When I went to my maternal house, he just couldn’t bear the heat there,” she said. The dehydration and spells of fever he experienced affected his immunization schedule. “His Pentavalent vaccine was delayed by several months because of health ailments,” said ASHA worker Shubhangi Kamble (no relation to Snehal), who has been monitoring this child since birth.

Further, his Measles-Rubella vaccine and Vitamin A dose were also delayed, making him vulnerable to diseases. “Vaccines need to be administered on time,” said Sachin Kamble, a nursing officer at the district women’s hospital in Maharashtra’s Osmanabad district. “Otherwise, it affects a child’s immunity, making them more vulnerable to diseases.”

He pointed out how the lack of vaccinations led to 2,692 cases in 2022 in Maharashtra, which reported the highest measles count in India. That was an eight-fold increase from the previous year. During this time, India reported 12,773 cases. India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS) said only 31.9 percent of children ages 24 months to 35 months had received a second dose of measles-containing vaccine in 2019-21.

Another healthcare worker, Kavita Magdum, from flood-affected Ganeshwadi village, said that children in her surveying area never fell ill so frequently. She started noticing such stark changes only in the past five years. Upon inspecting this, she found, “Stress caused by the changing climate is leading to this.” For instance, Magdum sees that many children aren’t drinking breast milk, which has impacted their medical parameters. These drastic changes reflect in Indian government statistics, as well. During 2015-16, 58.6 percent of children ages 6 months to 59 months (just under 5 years old) were anemic in India. By 2019-20, this number rose to 67.1 percent. In addition, 32 percent of children nationally remain underweight.

After a year-and-a-half, Snehal’s son started getting better, thanks to Shubhangi’s consistent visits, when she monitored every parameter and ensured the best possible treatment by working hours beyond her duty. “Once the vaccination schedule started falling in place, his health, too, began improving,” Shubhangi shared.

Untimely Administration of Vaccines

While climate change is making it difficult for these healthcare workers to complete universal immunization, another challenge is the untimely vaccine administration.

“There are many instances, where vaccines in several villages are just not available,” said Netradipa Patil, leader of more than 3,000 ASHA workers and co-founder of Deep-Maya Foundation, a non-profit that works for women and children. “During such times, it becomes extremely challenging for us healthcare workers to manage everyone.”

Patil has observed that the workload has increased tremendously for all the ASHA workers because of the delay in vaccination. This is because ASHA workers are responsible for immunization, and in case of any discrepancy or error, they are held accountable. Research published in 2016 concluded, “Lack of timely administration of key childhood vaccines, especially DPT3 (the three doses of the Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis vaccine) and MCV (measles-containing vaccine), remains a major challenge in India and likely contributes to the significant burden of vaccine-preventable disease-related morbidity and mortality in children.” Another paper published in 2019 inferred, “The proportion of children with delayed vaccination is high in India.”

In 2021, the World Health Organization found that 25 million children around the world under the age of 1 didn’t receive vaccines, a figure not seen since 2009. “Many children never get the Vitamin A doses on time. These doses are just not available when required,” Patil said, suggesting the Indian government should consult local healthcare workers to arrange vaccination. “We need to reach more and more people, and, currently, looking at the changing climate, we aren’t prepared to do this,” she shared. Patil made simple suggestions like identifying vulnerable children and their locality and monitoring them from the earlier stages, even before the disaster strikes. “Just by proper identification, we can save so many children,” she said.

Rising Undernourishment

Fed up with feeding medications and tonics that didn’t seem to help increase his weight and prevent him from continually falling ill due to the changing weather conditions, Rashi Patil, 23, quit taking her son to the doctor every month after 18 months. “My son just wouldn’t eat anything,” Patil said.

Moreover, the changes in local climatic patterns affected her son’s health, and he often fell sick. Last year, he was hospitalized for a week as his platelets fell and a fever intensified. What followed next were recurring illnesses that delayed his immunization schedule. Because of the fever in March, he wasn’t administered the Pentavalent 1 vaccine (it protects from five life-threatening diseases: Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B and Hib [Haemophilus Influenzae Type b]). Her son soon became weak and began recovering only after the vaccine’s administration. All this while, her son struggled with good eating habits. After several trials and errors, Rashi and her husband, Rajkumar, discovered the climate affected their son’s health and eating habits.

“Now, their son makes it a point to eat only outside the house, where he gets some cold air,” says Rashi. “Contrastingly, this was never the case with my elder daughter.”

Toward Freedom reached out to Ganeshwadi’s community health officer, Dr. Prajakta Gurav, regarding what steps her team was taking to deal with delayed immunization. Gurav hasn’t replied as of press time.

The impact of poor diets is more obvious at the national level. For instance, just 11.3 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 23 months receive an adequate diet. Plus, in 2022, India ranked 107 out of 121 countries on the global hunger index. These numbers further reveal how climate change is exacerbating the existing faultlines.

The problem is not restricted to India. Of the countries at severe risk of being adversely affected by climate change, the report by Save the Children says, “Burundi has the highest rate of stunted children (54 percent), followed by Niger (47 percent), Yemen (46 percent), Papua New Guinea (43 percent), Mozambique (42 percent) and Madagascar (42 percent).”

Research published in PLOS Medicine found that in 22 sub-saharan African countries, drought led to lower chances of completion of BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin), Polio and DPT (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) vaccines. “We took vaccines to the last mile. Now, climate change is eroding progress.”

For Komal Kamble, 30, vaccinating her 2-year-old daughter remains challenging. Her remote mountainous village of Kerle, in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, remains inaccessible most of the year.

For the village population of less than 1,100 people, the nearest healthcare facility is 15 kilometers away. Last year, within a week of October rains, the road that connects her village to the nearest hospital was completely under floodwater.

Komal’s daughter couldn’t get proper medical care for two days, worsening her health. Her chest was full of cough, and the fever rose, making things difficult for the agrarian Kamble family. This wasn’t restricted to heavy rainfall, though. Since her birth in 2021, Komal has taken her daughter to a private doctor at least 20 times, spending over Rs 15,000 ($182). Last year, she was feverish and wasn’t given the crucial Japanese encephalitis vaccine, a Vitamin A dose and the Measles-Rubella vaccine. This made her vulnerable to more diseases, challenging the Kamble family.

Healthcare worker Shubhangi Kamble from Arjunwad says that instances of children missing their vaccination are rising rapidly. When she went to find out why this was happening in her village, Arjunwad, she saw that children fell sick during floods and heat waves. “This was the time that coincided with their vaccination schedule, and so many couldn’t get the vaccines,” she shared.

However, a delay in vaccination has caused more problems than she had anticipated.

“Almost every day, at least one parent dials me asking where they should get their children hospitalized,” she said.

Now, every rainfall brings a health issue for Komal’s daughter. “I am tired of going to the healthcare center to hear that my daughter is underweight or sick and can’t be given the vaccine,” Komal said, with frustration in her voice.

Meanwhile, with every climate disaster, it will become increasingly difficult for many families to complete the immunization in time. “I’ve been vaccinating children for over a decade, but things never got this difficult. We took vaccines to the last mile. Now, climate change is eroding progress,” said healthcare worker Kavita Magdum.

Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.