Bhubaneswar is under transformative pressure from globalisation, neoliberalism, sustainable development, demographic changes, economic competiveness and reform.
All are reshaping its urban governance structures and the development and implementation of planning policy at local levels in new ways. As the world grapples with the implications of rising temperatures for the next 100 years, Bhubaneswar can’t be spared from its effects.
The Central Government committed to help States those have prepared Climate Change Action Plan. So does Odisha have a Climate Change Action Plan with an expectation to get Central support to implement programmes, which are a massive infrastructure driven activities. And in the city level, municipal bodies in places like Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, Sambalpur and Rourkela are in high expectation that their plans will get financial support from State or national Government.
A recent World Bank report estimates that by 2050 a two degrees Celsius temperature rise would require between $70 and $100 billion per year for adaption and there are projections that by the end of this century, world might be four degree plus warmer. Certainly, the World Bank report can’t be ignored. Then are we ready to shell out, let’s say around $1billion, in next one decade for our cityIJ Economically, the State Government has no option other than accepting such a massive investment.
A big question: Can these investments ensure to bring back our city’s temperature to its past record or at least official average records.
Over last one decade, the temperature of Bhubaneswar has been getting warmer and warmer like any other world cities by breaking some of its own records in heat wave. This trend is changing since 2010-11. From 37°C in April in 2011, it shot to 38°C, 39.6°C during same period of 2012 and 2013 and interestingly in 2014 it has already recorded 42°C by now. Perhaps this trend is likely to continue without proper intervention both globally and nationally.
Bhubaneswar and some of the coastal cities will get unusually warmer not just in summer but throughout the year, due to fast movement of winds from west and slow movement of winds from sea. Further, the wind that originates from sea is warmer than what it used to be two decades back because of global warming. The speed of sea wind is not fast enough to reach Bhubaneswar before the arrival of wind from the west which is hotter as it blows through the mining and industrial belts which are no more obstructed by barriers like water bodies or forests due to their absence over the years thanks to massive construction and deforestation. Similarly, when these warm winds arrive faster than the cold winds from sea, they get merged with city’s local temperature, that are already in a warm stage due to heavy auto exhausts, massive deforestation, high population density, conversion of many natural swampy areas into buildings and burning of wastes etc.
Sadly our city has reached to a level where individual actions will not make much difference now. So community action is needed with a huge network. We need to look back how stupid we have been to our local environment over the years and what we can do now: Can we bring back the city’s water mass (swampy character) in ground into its\\ original form; can we have more canopy trees on the street; can we remove all those encroached public space for their own interest; can we put more affordable and comfortable luxury public transport system; can every person switch from their personal automobiles into non motorized transport and can we create green and water mass barrier around Bhubaneswar to ensure westerly winds don’t reach the city with warmer actionsIJ
A good thing is that thanks to awareness and knowledge over years, the sun stroke death rates have been substantially reduced to a great degree since 1998. To be practical, we won’t be able to bring back our city’s temperature to the ones found in past but we must build our city to adapt with living in a warmer place at +40°C temperature.
Perhaps the time has come to move to the next level of managing heat wave than consolidating our self each day that tomorrow there will be some rainfall.
Worldwide many local Governments are taking action to structure growth around transit and invest in city centers, while preserving valuable watersheds and agricultural production in city surroundings. Urban containment strategies, such as in Portland, Oregon, have received a great deal of attention, but more modest policies can have a significant impact as well. In New York City, for example, where temperature increases are expected to make heat waves an increasing threat to public health, the city has embarked on a major tree planting campaign—”Greening the Bronx”—to combat urban heat island effect and severe ozone pollution on hot summer days. Similarly when Europe and East Asia faced severe heat wave in last couple of years, they took policy measures to tackle heat wave with appropriate infrastructure and actions i.e. no car ride, integration of water fountains in public space, modification in city’s business hours, running more public transport systems that depends on renewable energy and transforming the land use policy towards transit oriented that can avoid consumption heavy energy etc.
A +4°C warmer Bhubaneswar will pose unprecedented challenges to citizens than the +2°C. Although no quantification of the full-scale damage is yet possible, the picture that emerges challenges an often-implicit assumption that warmer city will not significantly undermine economic growth. It seems clear that in a 4°C warmer city could seriously undermine poverty alleviation of Odisha. The negative effects of warmer climate will affect in contribution of cities to the State economy. We may accept or not but truth is climate of the future will not be the same as in past. If no action is taken today, then it might go even worse.
(Dr Rout is an urban planner and co-founder, local Governance Network. He can be reached at piyush.rout@lgnet.in)