India needs a plan for extreme weather caused by climate change

Dr. Arunabha Ghosh is CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water in India and lead author of “Jobs, Growth and Sustainability: A New Social Contract for India’s Recovery.”

“All calm now,” wrote a Mumbai-based friend on June 3. Cyclone Nisarga had made landfall a few hours earlier, 96 km to the south. Mumbai residents had been spared the brunt of the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Maharashtra state in June since 1891.

Two weeks earlier, another coastal city, Kolkata, had not been that fortunate. Amphan, the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, had ripped through India’s eastern coast and Bangladesh, flattening the Sundarbans delta. The state government estimates damages have exceeded $13 billion.

India, with its 1.4 billion people, is especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change, from intense cyclones to extreme droughts. In fact, it was the…